Charles is a third grader. He really needs to go to the bathroom and his "mean" teacher Miss Bird asks him if he has to go before she allows him, embarrassing him. ("Very well Charles. You may go to the bathroom and urinate. Is that what you need to do? Urinate?") Arriving at the lavatory, he peeks around the corner, and sees a tiger lying on the bathroom floor. He stands at the door, too afraid to enter. Eventually a child named Kenny Griffen comes to get him. Charles begins to cry and Kenny leads him in, saying that he made up the tiger. Charles escapes out of the bathroom, and when he forces himself to go back in, he sees the tiger has a torn piece of Kenny's shirt on its claw. Charles decides to relieve himself in the sink, but Miss Bird catches him. She goes around the corner to find Kenny, and Charles leaves the bathroom and returns to class, letting the Tiger deal with his teacher.

Told from the viewpoint of a bandleader during Prohibition, the story centers around a small-time racketeer, Mike Scollay, who hires the narrator's jazz band to play at the wedding of his 300-pound sister, Maureen, and her 90-pound fiancé. At the gig, Scollay's enemy, the Greek, blackmails a man to come to the wedding reception and insult Maureen in front of the guests. Shortly after, Mike is shot down in a hail of gunfire from the Greek's men.

The band leader is approached a short time later in a bar by Maureen, who is despondent and depressed, feeling that she caused her brother's death and is filled with self-loathing over her weight and the way she is aware other people perceiving her. After requesting a song, she leaves, and the narrator never sees her again, but he, like everyone else in the country, follows her story from that point on. Now Maureen Romano, she takes over her brother's racket, with her husband as her lieutenant, and carves out a criminal empire that ironically far eclipses the operations of both her brother and the Greek, whom she soon hunts down and takes a gruesome revenge on. Eventually, she dies of a heart attack and her husband, who does not share her leadership abilities, is later sent to prison. The narrator sadly reflects on the cruel rumors that she had ballooned up even further in weight by that point, something he considers to just be malicious rumors.

At a private club in Manhattan, an elderly man named George Gregson recounts a card game he played many years ago where he met an odd man named Henry Brower who refused to touch anyone, recoiling from contact in fear. After Brower wins the game, another player, Jason Davidson, leaps up and shakes his hand enthusiastically, causing Brower to scream and bolt from the room. Gregson then makes it his mission to find him and give him his winnings. It's revealed shortly thereafter that Davidson had died of a brain aneurysm. Gregson speaks with an old associate of the man, who tells him that Brower was cursed by an Indian shaman after an unfortunate incident in Bombay in which he accidentally caused the death of a boy. From that moment on, Brower has been cursed to cause the death of any living thing he touches. Gregson then attempts to track down Brower and meets an innkeeper who tells him that he discovered Brower dead in the inn, one hand firmly clasped in the other.

The plot centers on two laundry workers named Rocky and Leo in a small Pennsylvania town. After finishing up a shift at work, the men drive around, getting drunk and searching for an auto-inspection station. The inspection certification on Rocky's car runs out at midnight and he needs to find somewhere that will renew it. They are drunk and getting drunker, drinking Iron City beers, which have the likeness of Pittsburgh Steelers players on them. They finally come across an inspection station owned by an old friend of Rocky's, Bob Driscoll. Rocky crashes the car into Bob's garage and in the ensuing verbal confrontation Bob recognizes him. They then reminisce about old times while Bob inspects Rocky's vehicle for certification. Rocky and Leo continue to drink; at one point, Leo falls into a drunken stupor.

After Bob approves the vehicle, Rocky and Leo depart, both very drunk. Later that night, Bob, who is in an unhappy marriage, kills his wife and burns down their home.

On the way home on a long, dark stretch of road, Leo tells Rocky that he sees a vehicle following them, implying that it is a milk truck. Rocky's wife had left him for a local milkman, Spike (the primary character in "Morning Deliveries (Milkman No. 1)"). Rocky's reaction is extreme; he begins speeding dangerously and reveals to Leo that Spike "kills people." Rocky's Chrysler crashes fatally into an oncoming vehicle that suddenly appears riding the median line.

It's revealed that Spike, the local milkman, is driving this vehicle and that he's indeed a serial killer, who plans to visit Bob's home and leave full cans of gasoline, suggesting that he will successfully influence Bob into killing his wife.

Although not directly part of the main storyline (which takes on a darkly humorous tone), it's implied that there are links between one of the men and an unsolved murder of a teenage couple, although it is probable that this is another murder committed by Spike.

It is the girls' last summer before college. They all find themselves in different, but challenging situations. They all struggle with their identities, love, and relationships.

Lena

Following the death of Lena's grandfather, Lena's father convinced his mother, Valia, to move in with his family. Valia is homesick and sad, and, as a result, constantly complains and makes Lena's home life very tense (in addition to the recent loss of her past lover, Kostos). Lena's one solace is the figure drawing class she is taking at an art school, despite her parents' wishes that she choose a more practical interest. However, when her father comes into the class and sees her drawing a nude model, he forbids her from taking the class. Lena tries to fund the class herself but is caught by her father, who then announces that he will not pay for Lena to go to the Rhode Island School of Design.

Shocked by her father's decision, Lena goes to the class's instructor, Annik Marchand, who advises Lena to try for a scholarship. Lena makes a portfolio of drawings of her family, as well as Paul Rodman, who comes to stay with Carmen and ends up visiting and posing for Lena. Through her drawings, Lena learns more about her family: her sister Effie's anger that Lena is leaving for college, her mother's struggle between Lena's wishes and her father's, her father's fear of Lena entering a world he is unfamiliar with, and her grandmother's wishes that someone pay attention to her misery instead of simply ignoring it.

At the end of the summer, Lena mails in her portfolio and receives word that she has gotten the scholarship. She tells her father and receives his permission to attend art school. She also manages to convince him to allow Valia to return to Greece.

Tibby

Brian asks Tibby to go to the senior party with him, as his date. At first, she refuses to think of him as anything but a friend but eventually discovers that she, too has developed feelings for him. Although after some time it is clear that the feeling is mutual, she worries about changing their relationship and opening herself up to him. She soon relents, though, and Brian kisses her and tells her that he loves her. The next morning, Katherine reached out the window to get an apple but falls out the window and injures her head. Tibby is thrown into depression, concerned for Katherine and blaming herself for the accident. She also feels as if she didn't love Katherine enough, having always resented her younger siblings. She begins to avoid Brian, feeling that the accident wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been thinking about him, and also believing that Katherine's accident indicates that taking chances will only end in suffering. Towards the end of the novel, Tibby becomes Christina's unwilling labor partner and helps Christina be brave enough to have the baby, even without her husband and Carmen's presence. This encourages Tibby to be brave herself and confront her feelings for Brian instead of shying away from them, and they begin a relationship.

Bridget

Bridget goes to soccer camp in Pennsylvania and is shocked to discover that one of her fellow coaches is none other than Eric. She finds her feelings for him reawakening but is stunned by the discovery that he has a girlfriend, Kaya. Bridget plans to begin avoiding Eric, but her plan is shot down when she and Eric are made partners, causing them to see each other constantly.

Not wanting to upset Eric, Bridget selflessly puts her feelings aside and restrains herself to being Eric’s friend while respecting the relationship between Eric and Kaya. The two develop a friendship despite Bridget’s uncertainties.

Later, Bridget comes down with a fever, and Eric finds her in her cabin very ill. Eric carries her to his cabin and he takes care of her. They fall asleep together, and Bridget wakes up to find Eric holding her. Feeling guilty, she tries to break the hold quietly, but her attempts to wake up Eric. Bridget feels confused and betrayed when he leaves the camp for an unknown reason and decides that she won’t continue to vie for his attention anymore. As much as she prided herself on making this summer with Eric different from the first one (where she threw herself at him and they ended up having sex), it begins to feel the same because once again she is left wondering why he left her. She trains her soccer team hard, and they go on to defeat Eric’s in the championship.

Bridget later questions Eric about his leaving, and Eric reveals that he returned to New York to break up with his girlfriend due to his feelings for Bridget. At first, Bridget asks Eric if he gets closer to her just to leave her, but he lets her know otherwise. He tells her that he thinks they were always meant to be. They become closer than they were before and agree to become a couple because it was fate that brought them together and the only thing that can tear them apart is each other. They are in love. Even though she is in love, she will always make sure she has time for her friends.

Carmen

Carmen feels stressed out over her mother’s pregnancy and her job watching Lena’s grandmother, Valia, who has become cranky and sullen ever since she was forced to move to the United States following the death of her husband. Carmen also begins to feel that her leaving for college will leave her unable to return home, and decides to attend the University of Maryland instead of Williams so that she can stay home and retain a part of her old life.

While taking Valia to the hospital one day, Carmen meets a guy named Win Sawyer, a college student who volunteers at the hospital. He begins to develop feelings for her, and she for him, but she fears that he only likes her because he assumes that she is a kind and selfless person, and is afraid of telling him the truth. She calls this selfless side of her, "Good Carmen."

When Carmen’s mother goes into labor four weeks early, Carmen enlists Tibby to stay with her mother, and together with Win Sawyer heads off to find David, Christina's husband, who is out of town. Together, Tibby and Christina do it and she delivers a baby boy which Carmen names Ryan. After the baby is born, Win and Carmen finally kiss and leave the hospital hand in hand. Carmen finds that "Good Carmen," is a part of her, not a different person. Carmen realizes that there will always be a place for her in her family, and she decides to go to Williams College. She is very sad to be going separate ways for college but is also excited to finally attend the college of her wishes.

Category:2005 American novels Category:American novels adapted into films Category:Delacorte Press books

The game starts when Clawster and his army and Underworlders initiate a power failure in the city of Metropolis in an attempt to take over the city. Superman intervenes and defeats the horde of Underdwellers, Clawster included. Not long after the power is restored, a news report bulletin states a monster of unknown origin (Doomsday) is leading a path of destruction towards Metropolis, and the Justice League were unable to stop the creature. The titanic struggle between Superman and Doomsday reached a conclusion when the two delivered each other the killing blow. Superman succumbs to his injuries as he dies, as well as Doomsday.

Three months later, four Supermen emerge in an effort to replace the original Superman, whilst the other claiming he is indeed the original Superman. The game shifts to Cyborg Superman (the "Man of Tomorrow") as he attacks a Project Cadmus base to locate a comatose Doomsday. Fearing he would be a threat once again if he wakes up, the Cyborg exiles Doomsday in deep space. Next, the player controls the Eradicator (the "Last Son of Krypton") as he patrols the streets of Metropolis. However, he is forced into battle with another Superman, Steel, as the armored hero fights to prevent the Last Son of Krypton from killing enemies. After the two Supermen fought to a standstill, the Eradicator reconsiders his brutal approach to fighting crime after Steel tells him it takes humanity and compassion to be considered a Superman.

However, a bigger threat comes, as a mysterious spacecraft arrives and obliterates Coast City (the hometown of Hal Jordan). The Eradicator investigates the situation, only to run in with the mastermind, the Cyborg. The Eradicator is critically injured at the Cyborg's hands, and rushes to the Fortress of Solitude. The game shifts its focus on Superboy (the "Metropolis Kid") as he attempts to handle the current situation in Metropolis. After successfully doing so, Superboy flies off to Coast City, doing battle with the Cyborg as he arrives. The Cyborg knocks out and imprisons Superboy in the spacecraft. There, the rogue Superman reveals his plan: to destroy the world and reconstruct it in his image, starting with Coast City and Metropolis. While this is going on, a being flies among the skies above the Fortress of Solitude, albeit weakly. Back in Coast City, Superboy escapes imprisonment to go back to Metropolis, where he and Steel encounter the real Superman. Not wanting to wait, Superboy convinces the two to go with him to Coast City to stop the Cyborg once and for all.

The player now controls Steel (the "Man of Steel") as he, Superman, and Superboy launch an assault on Engine City. However, the Cyborg launches a missile set to destroy Metropolis. Superboy elects to stop the missile, and, with player controlling Superboy, he successfully destroys the missile. At Engine City, the player shifts back to Steel, as he enters the Engine's core to shut it down. Meanwhile, a regenerated Eradicator bursts out of the Fortress and arrives at Engine City to help a weakened Superman, who is at the Cyborg's mercy. The Cyborg shoots Kryptonite fuel at Superman but the Eradicator arrives and shields Superman from the blast. The BMI of the Eradicator alters the deadly effects of the Kryptonite fuel and restores Superman to full strength as the Eradicator dies. Now controlling Superman, the player defeats and destroys the Cyborg Superman. The game ends with Steel and Superboy congratulating Superman for his success and accepting him as the real Superman.

The episode opens with the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard unit in an air raid shelter during a raid. Jones and his section arrive, Frazer complaining that the "shrapnel was coming down like hail". Pike makes a fool of himself by explaining why he acquires hundreds and thousands as his sweet ration to Mainwaring, but to Pike's dismay his sweets all go on the floor when a bomb falls nearby. They are joined by ARP Warden Hodges, who mentions that a bomb has fallen on the local pumping station. Godfrey and Walker are on duty there, so some of the platoon, with Hodges, go to rescue them.

When they arrive, Walker and Godfrey are unhurt but Godfrey is asleep in an inner room and Walker cannot wake him up. Bomb damage has made the corridor very dangerous, so Mainwaring puts two dots on pieces of paper to determine who goes at the head of a human chain with a frightened Hodges picking the first of the two dots. Mainwaring pulls a blank piece but lies to stop the young Pike of having any chance of being at the front. They quickly shift the rubble to gain access to the trapped men, with Mainwaring at the front, then Hodges, Wilson, Frazer, Pike, and Jones at the back. Once inside, they wake up Godfrey, who had taken soporific tablets to help him sleep (since he has had trouble sleeping lately), explaining why Walker couldn't wake him. Mainwaring asks Wilson to tell Jones to close his door, but Jones slams the door, thus bringing the roof down in the corridor and trapping everyone (except Jones, who is left outside) in the inner room. When Jones goes for help he breaks the handle on the outside door, leaving him trapped as well.

Mainwaring enlists Wilson's help to cheer the men up by singing "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree" but whilst doing this a pipe bursts and the inner room starts to flood, Pike being soaked first by the jet of water. Jones tries to shut off the water from his side with the stopcock, but only increases it and leaving Pike's jacket, which he was using to try and wrap up the pipe, completely drenched.

Later, the inner room is now waist high in water, with Pike standing in the flood, pleading with everyone to do something otherwise he will drown, Hodges floating in a tank, and the rest of the men crammed onto the bunks.

Much later, the water is neck high. Pike is still pleading, and the rest assure him that they are thinking about how to get out. Eventually, Godfrey discovers a manhole that can be opened to allow them all to escape. The spanner needed to unbolt it is hanging high on the wall, and when Hodges tries to reach it, he falls out of his tank and into the water, dropping the spanner. Pike dives under the water and retrieves it, leaving him more wet than ever, but at least the men can get out. After opening the manhole, they crawl through it to the outside of the pumping house, then run round to rescue Jones, who has managed to open another inspection hatch into the flooded chamber.

But before they can all leave, Godfrey shuts the outside door ("there's a nasty draught and you're all wet. I didn't want you to catch cold"), thus trapping them all in the outer room again and leaving Wilson having to go around again through the water filled chamber to open the door from the other side.

While Mainwaring is testing his new communication system, talking through sweet tins strung together by string, trouble is brewing on the horizon. The ARP Headquarters was bombed the previous night, and the town clerk and vicar have given them permission to move in with the Home Guard at the church hall. Mainwaring, naturally, is appalled at having to share his office with Hodges, and the hall with his "rabble". He orders his men to get rid of him, and Corporal Jones chases him out with a bayonet.

Hodges returns, this time with the vicar and the verger and takes over half the hall. The Home Guard platoon struggle to come to terms with this new sharing arrangement, and even Walker who's usually shrewd in business is unimpressed, though he takes the chance to sell the Wardens a 'firelighter' to light the stove. While Mainwaring and Hodges are wrestling for control of the office telephone, a call comes through warning them of a fire that has started at a large building next to St Aldhems church. After initially calling for the fire brigade, they realise that it is in fact their own headquarters burning, and the chimney set alight by Walker's firelighter.

The Wardens and Home Guard combine forces to try to put it out, entailing a rooftop drama with a hose and buckets of water. Eventually Wilson puts out the fire with a pinch of salt, despite Hodges's scepticism. Just as they are about to exit the roof, Mainwaring, Hodges and their men are trapped in a thunderstorm by a falling ladder, leading Mainwaring to ask Wilson if "the Fire Brigade wouldn't mind popping round".

The platoon arrive at a weekend country training camp to teach them about bombs. The camp is run by a twitchy Captain Reed (Michael Knowles) frightened by the enthusiasm and lack of awareness shown by the Home Guard. He is particularly unsettled by the Walmington-on-Sea platoon, especially Corporal Jones.

The story largely follows Captain Mainwaring's fall from grace in the eyes of his platoon, and subsequent redemption. When the men are bivouacked in a tent, he falls under the influence of Captain Square who convinces him to set up an officers only section, much to the outrage of his men. He subsequently offends them by attending a select officers mess, drinking whisky with Captain Square and colleagues, and playing "Cardinal Puff" while his men enjoy a couple of bottles of ale elsewhere. Most of the men are disgruntled, while noting this is not Mainwaring's normal behaviour. Frazer goes so far as to threaten to resign (his general surly attitude of late has led Mainwaring to suspect he is a communist, noting he "never plays Monopoly with the others" as evidence of his suspicions). A drunken Mainwaring returns to their tent only to be jumped on by Corporal Jones, thinking he is a thuggee.

The next morning, a rather hungover and worse for wear Captain Mainwaring joins his men for training. While at first things go seemingly to plan, potential disaster soon strikes when a stray grenade is fired into the roof of the platoon's van. Mainwaring immediately goes to warn Jones, who abandons the van while it is moving. A cool Mainwaring then stops and evacuates the van, but the van is stood next to power lines. Mainwaring re-enters the van and recovers the stray grenade: his command of the situation restoring his reputation in the eyes of the platoon. After Mainwaring throws the grenade away and dives for safety he hears panting, looking up to see the grenade being held by a shaggy dog. Mainwaring flees only to be chased down the road by the dog as the episode ends.

Following on almost immediately from the events of ''Seduced by Moonlight'', ''A Stroke of Midnight'' begins with Merry and the Ravens attending a press conference in the sithen. This is highly unusual as the home of the sidhe is usually off-limits to the human press. However, it is felt that it is more secure than holding the conference elsewhere.

This opinion is challenged almost immediately by the deaths of Beatrice, one of the lesser fae, and a human reporter. Merry, assigned to solve the murders by her aunt, Queen Andais, opts to bring in human forensics in the hope that science might be able to succeed where magic has so far failed - and bring a murderer to justice.

The entire novel takes place within approximately one day.

'''Seduced by Moonlight''' begins shortly after the events of ''A Caress of Twilight''. Kurag, Goblin King, is insisting upon proof that Kitto has become sidhe following sex with Merry. She offers an extra month of their alliance for every goblin hybrid she can bring into sidhe magic.

During the discussions, Siun, Kitto's nightmarish, spidery former mistress, appears and he is terrified. It is revealed that Rhys also swore blood price on her, as it was she that took his eye when he failed to "glow" for her during sex. In his fear, Kitto accidentally uses the ''Hand of Reaching'' to open a portal through the mirror. Siun falls through and is trapped half-way, and after some negotiation, Kurag allows the Ravens to do what they like. Kitto viciously wounds her, and Rhys kills her with a sword.

It is revealed that Meredith is a vessel for the Goddess Danu when she inadvertently brings the pregnant Maeve Reed back into her god-head, and gives Frost newfound god status (which he is not comfortable with). The cup or cauldron also reappears after Merry has a dream about it, an effect that has significant impact upon the sidhe who believed it lost forever.

During sex with Merry many of her lovers suffer unexpected side-effects:

• Rhys is brought back into his god-head
• Frost is brought into his god-head
• Sage is turned into a full-sized sidhe
• Nicca is possessed by Dian Cecht
• Doyle regains his shape-shifting abilities (turning into a dog and a horse), plus ones he never had previously (an eagle).

Merry and her lovers return to the Courts. Upon the flight back, Merry is presented with the Queen's ring by Rhys. This is not only a symbol of her status as heir, but also a potent artifact in its own right. It was known as the ''happy ever after'' ring as it permitted sidhe to find their perfect mates.

When they arrive at the airport they are greeted by several of the Queen's Ravens as well as human policemen. The Queen has insisted that Merry take to her bed any of the sidhe that the ring recognises. A short while after their arrival, they attend a press conference. A policeman is bewitched and shooting breaks out. Merry is saved by Frost and others of the Ravens.

Yet more Ravens await Merry at the sithen. The Queen insists that Merry beds two out of the four before she appears before her. The result is the appearance of a spring, from which Merry fills a cup. Andais, apparently insane with bloodlust, is attacking her men. The Ravens attempt to intervene and protect one another. Merry uses her ''Hand of Blood'' to draw wounds upon her aunt. The Green Man then gives Merry the ability to heal all those in the room.

It is discovered that a spell was used to incite the Queen to murder. The plot was hatched by those amongst the court who feared that a mortal Queen, Merry, would result in the sidhe ceasing to exist. Merry is challenged by one, Miniver, and they duel before the court. Meredith is declared the winner.

''A Caress of Twilight'' begins a few months after the events of ''A Kiss of Shadows''. It is December, and Merry and the Sidhe warriors she has chosen as her lovers have returned to Los Angeles, California. Merry has resumed working for the ''Grey Detective Agency'' and several of the Sidhe have also joined the payroll.

Merry is approached by Maeve Reed, previously known as Conchenn before her exile from the Seelie Court and now a famous Hollywood actress. Maeve asks Merry to perform a fertility rite that will permit her to have a child by her dying human husband. In return, she tells the princess that the reason for her exile was that she had refused to become the wife of Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, because she believed he was sterile.

Galen, badly injured by the demi-fey during ''A Kiss of Shadows'', has yet to heal, despite the usually phenomenal healing abilities of a sidhe warrior. Merry approaches the Queen of the Demi-Fey, Niceven, regarding a cure. The price of the cure and an alliance is a weekly drink of Merry's blood by a surrogate to be chosen by Niceven.

During Merry's first night in bed with Doyle, they are interrupted by Andais who reveals that the Nameless has been freed. The worst of both courts, the Nameless was the last great spell that Seelie and Unseelie had cooperated upon. They had stripped themselves of everything too awful for them to be permitted to stay in the United States, and from it had been formed the Nameless.

A strange murder brings members of the Grey Agency, including Merry, to the scene. However, their presence is challenged by others of the police force and they are thrown off site. However, this is not before they have a chance to suspect that supernatural forces are at work. It is suspected that the lives had been sucked from the murder victims by the ghosts of dead gods. Nothing is said to the police, however, as the only known person to work such a spell was a sidhe and, if it were discovered, that fact could result in all sidhe being banished from the country.

Healed from his injuries by Niceven's representative, Sage, Galen acts the part of the Green Man in the fertility ritual with Merry which results in Maeve Reed becoming pregnant.

It begins to become clear that Taranis is also planning something as various social secretaries insist upon Merry attending first the Yule Ball and then a feast in her honour. This culminates in a conversation between Merry and Taranis himself.

Finally, the Nameless attacks Maeve Reed's home. It is finally defeated by Merry and her companions, Merry herself showing for the first time her second Hand of Power - the ''Hand of Blood''. The result of the destruction of the Nameless is the release of the magics which formed it; these magics transfer themselves to the victors, who begin to exhibit unforeseen side effects.

The story begins in Los Angeles, California, in a world where magical creatures are "out of the closet" and, in some cases, even legal. Princess Meredith NicEssus is working for the ''Grey Detective Agency'' under the assumed name of Meredith 'Merry' Gentry. When two women come to the agency with a story about fey-wannabes and rituals involving fey women, Merry goes undercover to investigate. However, she and her colleagues get more than they bargained for when it is discovered that the culprit is using ''Branwyn's Tears'', an illegal oil that can make a human appear as a sidhe (pronounced 'shee') lover for a night, and turn even a sidhe or a sidhe-descendant into his sexual slave.

In the process of solving the case, Merry's secret is revealed, and she is hunted by the demonic ''Sluagh''. Brought to see their King, Sholto, he offers Meredith a deal. Himself disapproved of by Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, because of his mixed blood, he proposes an alliance between the two of them. Jealous at the idea of Merry becoming his lover, Sholto's harem of nighthags attack Merry. During the fight Merry's gift, the ''Hand of Flesh'', is revealed when one of them, Nerys, turns into a ball of flesh.

Shocked, Merry tries to flee, but is trapped. Doyle, Captain of the Queen's Raven Guard, appears. He announces that the Queen never sent the Sluagh, and that in fact the Queen meant her no harm. As proof of this he produces the Queen's sword ''Mortal Dread'', as well as the Queen's mark, which he transfers to Merry in a kiss.

Merry returns with Doyle to the Court. The Queen claims that she wants her bloodline to continue upon the throne. She is willing to take as her heir whichever of Meredith or her cousin, Cel, can first produce an heir. She lifts the geiss of celibacy upon her Ravens for Meredith alone, insisting that she choose at least three in order to increase the chance of pregnancy.

While this offer would permit Merry to end her self-imposed exile and return home, it also brings dangers. Cel, previously the sole heir, makes several attempts upon her life. Merry makes alliances with others such as Kurag, the Goblin King.

However, Cel was behind the Branwyn's Tears incident in LA. In punishment, he is to be confined for six months after being coated with the oil himself, something akin to torture.

Meredith wakes up from a dream where she is given a horn cup from the Consort.  The horn is a lost relic belonging to Abeloec, one of her guards, and the former god of wine.  Abeloec and Merry drink from the horn, and some of his former god powers are restored.  The other guards receive tattoos, symbols of their former god-powers that link the guards to Meredith in a mysterious way.

They are magically transported to the heart of the Unseelie sithen, the dead gardens, where sex with Meredith, Abeloec and Mistral causes the gardens to come alive again.  Rain begins to fall inside the garden.

Through the sex magic, Galen, Nicca and Aisling disappear into the earth, air and trees, apparently as sacrifices to bring the magic back.  Merry discovers that the Sithen responds to her desires, like adjusting how much rain falls in the garden.  Merry learns that Abeloec's cup was once used to make queens and goddesses, and the group speculate as to whether Merry is now immortal.

Meredith asks the sithen to create a door to return to the Unseelie sithen.  When they go through it, they find that they have accidentally passed into the Sluagh sithen, and they end up in the dead garden of the Sluagh.  Before they can escape, they are confronted by Sholto, King of the Sluagh, and Lord of That Which Passes Between, and his two night hags, Agnes and Segna.
Meredith discovers that Sholto's tentacles have been shaved off by a member of the Seelie who tricked him.  The hags believe that Meredith is part of the conspiracy.  Segna attacks Meredith, but before she can reach her, Sholto strikes her and throws her into the dead lake, where is she is speared by the enchanted bones of the dead.  Segna is mortally wounded, but alive.   Sholto and Meredith wade into the lake to euthanize Segna.  In a last-ditch attempt to kill Meredith, Segna pulls her under the water.   Meredith uses her Hand of Blood to finish Segna.

Sholto and Meredith magically appear on the Island of Bones in the middle of the lake.  Sholto carries a dagger and a spear of bone, signs of kingship among the sluagh that had been lost.  The Goddess appears and gives Sholto the chance to restore magic to the Sluagh.  He is given the choice to either bring the magic back with blood by killing Meredith, or by sex.  If he chooses death, the black heart of the sluagh will be restored.  But if he chooses sex and life, it will change the sluagh sithen to a more Seelie-like place.  Sholto chooses sex and life, and together they restore magic to the Sluagh garden.  In a blast of power, they are returned to the Sluagh garden which is now filled with herbs, plants and flowers.

Drunk with his new power, Sholto calls the Wild Hunt to chase the sidhe.  Meredith and her guards flee.  Meredith conjures a protective covering of four-leaf clover and discovers a "thin place" that allow them to escape the Sluagh sithen.  Now more sidhe than ever, Sholto is attacked by the very Wild Hunt that he called up, and he is forced to flee as well.

Now in the real world, Meredith calls on a group of Red Caps (cousins of the goblins), led by Jonty, to fight the Wild Hunt with them.  The Wild Hunt is defeated and through the remaining magic, faerie animals including dogs appear.

After the battle, they are rejoined by Galen, Aisling and Nicca who, having disappeared from the garden, reappeared in the Hall of Mortality.  Galen's wild magic causes flowers and water to appear in the Hall, and he accidentally causes all prisoners to be freed, including Cel, the Queen's son, who wants Meredith dead.  A furious Andais confronts Meredith and tells her that she must take her guards and go back to Los Angeles tonight, because she has ruined her sithen and Andais cannot keep her safe from Cel.

The story follows two fictional characters Mick and Kev who have nothing to offer. They are stereotypical bogans with a taste for cheap thrills. Kev's hobby is being angry, his motto is ''"Maximum fear, minimum time"''. He is unemployed with "attitude," an antagonistic manner. Mick is his best friend ("mate") and together they kill time drinking beer, watching the Idiot Box and looking for action on the street.

One day Kev tells Mick they have drawn their last dole cheque. Instead of giving into their limited circumstances, they are going to get rich quick doing the only thing they are qualified for - crime. Conning a friend into driving the getaway car, the gang of three plan a bank robbery. But it is a heist that is doomed from the start when professional criminals target the same bank.

The game plot takes place in the time shortly before ''Ragnarök'', an epic battle at the end of the world in Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a fallen warrior (an ''Einherjar'') tasked by the god Odin to attempt to change the destiny of the gods and avert their fall during the coming war. Although the title takes some liberty with the accepted mythos, most elements are well represented and hence can be considered semi-educational.

The tasks given to the player include: * Recovering the missing head of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. * Finding key items needed to forge a chain to bind Fenrir. * Strengthening Thor's fishing line, so that it doesn't break when catching the world serpent. * Obtaining a special breastplate for Heimdall.

Once all of the tasks are completed, Heimdall can be asked to blow his horn, causing the battle of Ragnarök to commence, with the outcome then being reported to the player.

Lorna Bellstratten (Walters), a waitress with dreams of being in show business, is duped by her drug-dealer boyfriend Michael Vega (Guastaferro) into delivering a bomb to an undercover cop. Though Lorna survives the explosion (intended to kill her and the cop), she finds herself—as the only material witness to the crime she unwittingly abetted—wanted by both the cops and the mob (Vega's employers). Distraught, Lorna flees to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and takes out a contract on her own life (suicide-by-hitman.) Meanwhile, Vega (posing as Lorna's father) hires Los Angeles bail bondsman, Eddie Moscone (Hedaya) to send in a bounty hunter to bring her back to LA alive. Eddie offers the job to bounty hunter Jack Walsh (McDonald) for $10,000. He doesn't want to take the job because Eddie keeps on stiffing him his money. Eddie threatens to give the job to rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler, who does not make an appearance. When Walsh finds her in Cabo San Lucas, Lorna thinks he's her hitman. After a night of dancing, Lorna finds out the truth, hits Walsh out of anger and returns to her hotel room in a huff. Walsh's attempt to recover her is initially thwarted by the untimely arrival of the real hit-man, but they escape—with the hitman, the cops, and Vega's goons all hot on their trail. Along the way, the still-despondent Lorna keeps looking for—and finding—all manner of new ways to kill herself. For Jack Walsh, there's another problem—he's falling in love.

Somebody empties the bank accounts of many people, including Babu Anna (Akhilendra Mishra), an underworld don, via an Internet theft. The police are clueless about the robber, and Anna wants revenge. In another story, Jai Malhotra (Shahid Kapoor) lives with his best friend, Sonia (Kim Sharma). He meets Neha Mehra (Kareena Kapoor) and falls in love with her instantly. At first, Neha rejects Jai, causing him to attempt suicide. After Sonia chastises Neha regarding Jai's actions, she then falls for him too.

One day, Jai sees Neha trying to hang herself after getting a phone call. She tells him that her dead father owed a huge amount of money to Babu Anna's underworld. To repay the amount, he became part of a gang of hackers who were responsible for the Internet thefts. After his death, Babu's Anna underworld began pursuing Neha to recover the money. Jai and Neha try to sell their apartments to get enough money, to no avail. A visit from a client leads Jai to consider robbing a bank to get the necessary money. At a bank, Jai spots a rich man named Vikram Singh (Fardeen Khan) withdrawing a huge sum of money and instead decides to steal from him. However, Vikram catches Jai during his attempts to break into his house.

Instead of reporting Jai to the police, Vikram demands an explanation for his actions. Upon learning the whole story, Vikram reveals that he is the hacker behind the internet thefts but agrees to help Jai. In return, Jai has to take the blame for the thefts. Jai agrees, gives the money to Neha and turns himself in. Jai is escorted by police to be introduced for the trial, but Anna has his men intercept them to kidnap Jai. A shootout results between the gang and police as Jai is able to escape and runs to Neha's apartment, only to find both Neha and Vikram waiting for him. He is horrified to learn that they conspired against him to steal all the money, and Neha's love was just a ruse to con him to take a fall.

Jai escapes from the apartment but is shot off a Jai in the train by a police officer. Jai fall down the river on railway bridge Jai river drowning even though his body is not found, he is presumed dead. Two months later, Neha and Vikram start getting anonymous phone calls. Neha believes that the calls are from Jai and that he is still alive. Jai, who is very much alive, is bent on getting revenge on both Neha and Vikram.

Jai makes life miserable for both Vikram and Neha. One day when Neha and Vikram go out for a movie, Vikram finds Neha hanging by her neck in the toilet, and Neha confirms that Jai is alive. Vikram, out of rage, tracks Jai down and severely beats him up, threatening to murder him if he comes back into their lives again. Vikram then reports Jai to Babu Anna, thus giving him a whiff of the affair. This does not deter Jai as he later blackmails Vikram by kidnapping Neha, forcing him to turn himself in. Vikram obliges and is led to Neha; however, all three are intercepted and taken hostage by Babu Anna and his gang, demanding all his money from them. Jai cleverly deflects Anna and forces Vikram to transfer Anna's money back into his account. Catching them off guard, Jai and Vikram finish Anna and his gang.

In the melee, Vikram has Jai cornered, but Jai finally overpowers him. However, Neha strikes Jai hard from behind, allowing Vikram to gun Jai down. Vikram and Neha mock Jai as they watch him struggle with his fatal injuries. Jai stuns the two by rising with Babu Anna's gun and shoots Neha in the forehead, killing her instantly, to Vikram's horror. Jai collapses and boasts about settling the score for once whilst finally succumbing to his injuries, leaving Vikram alone to grieve over Neha's corpse. Later, a news report reveals that somebody has made a very hefty and generous donation to the Missionary Charity Fund, whilst Vikram is shown heading out in a boat. Thus it is implied that Vikram gave away all of Babu Anna's money to charity as he no longer has any good use for it.

The tale begins when architect Harold Berger (Paul Hubschmid) arrives in India and travels to the kingdom of Maharaja Chandra (Walter Reyer), for whom he will build schools and hospitals. En route to the Maharajah's palace, Berger travels with a temple dancer named Seetha (Debra Paget), who has also been invited by the Maharajah, and saves her from a tiger. Seetha, whose father was European, has inadvertently caused the Maharajah to become infatuated with her, but she and the architect begin to fall in love. Predictably, this leads to tension between Chandra and Berger, exacerbated by scheming courtiers who believe that the Maharajah's potential marriage to the dancer could become a pretext for toppling him. The film is filled with action: a highlight is Seetha's ritual dance. At the end of ''Tiger'', Seetha and Berger escape together into the desert just as Berger's sister and her husband, an architect who works with Berger, arrive in Eschnapur. Chandra informs them that he now wants a tomb to be built for Seetha before any further work on the commissioned buildings.

Federal agent Irving Greenfield confers with a Southern governor about the corruption problem in fictional Dunston County and local boss "Bama" McCall. Irving intends to find Gator McKlusky, an old buddy of Bama's just out of prison, to help get the goods on Bama. When Irving mentions that "cleaning up" Dunston County would help his re-election, the governor agrees to give Irving whatever he needs.

Irving visits Gator who is back with his father and daughter in Okeefenokee. Gator is uninterested at first, but reconsiders when Irving threatens to put his father in jail and his daughter in foster care. They drive to Dunston, where Gator reunites with Bama at a political rally and is immediately hired as a collector. Gator also locks eyes with TV reporter Aggie Maybank, who is after a story. After treating Gator to a taste of the high life, Bama secretly orders a background check on him, and Gator gets a closer look at Bama's empire: extortion, drugs, and corruption at every level. Then Bama sets Gator up with one of the girls at his brothel, a drugged cheerleader Gator remembers from the rally; she says that all the girls there are minors, which Bama prefers.

Disgusted, Gator wants out, and Bama gives him a spiked drink and says he will wake up in his car parked at the county line pointed toward home. As promised, Gator wakes up in his car at daybreak, but now he wants to get Bama. Meanwhile, Irving is trying to fit in by hanging out at a local bar and making conversation when a corrupt cop recognizes him and gets word to Bama's enforcers Smiley and Bones, who injure Irving bad enough to be hospitalized.

At the hospital Gator meets Aggie, who wants to see Irving. She tells of Emmeline, a "cat lady" fired from the Dunston County courthouse after 22 years. Gator and Aggie visit the woman, who mentions secret ledgers in the courthouse basement. That night, using stolen keys, they sneak in and find the ledgers, but a guard hits the alarm, and police quickly converge, but they escape in a patrol car, pick up Irving, and go to Aggie's uncle's beach house nearby. Gator and Aggie slip out to the beach for the night while Irving and Emmeline get acquainted.

At daybreak, while Gator and Aggie go to call Irving's boss, Bama and Bones arrive, kill Irving, and set fire to the house to destroy the ledgers; Bones tries to haul Emmeline away, but she breaks free and is killed when she tries to rescue her cats. Seeing the fire, Gator and Aggie hide at a nearby motel. He first calls Irving's boss to come and get them, then Bama to tell him that he has some of the tax records and wants $2,000 and a plane ticket home in exchange for his location; Bama apparently agrees. When they arrive, Bama sends Bones into the room to kill Gator and Aggie, but he is killed by an exploding booby trap set by Gator, who then emerges and chases Bama to the nearby beach. Gator beats him in a fistfight just as a helicopter approaches.

Later, Aggie is in a celebratory mood; her story has gone national and CBS wants her to work in New York. Gator tells her he loves her but, realizing they have no future together, he reluctantly heads home.

In the beginning, Freddy had the idea to establish a tourism company called Barnyard Tours Inc. The animals agreed, and the company was formed. Animals could pay for a tour with food, or by doing work for Mr. Bean. Soon, however, Freddy and Jinx, the cat, were sick and tired of conducting the tours. Freddy suggested a trip to the North Pole. So they and four other animals set off.

A year passed, and the animals left began to worry. A mob formed in the barnyard triggered by a speech by Charles, the rooster. Then, Ferdinand, a crow from the expedition, came back and organized a rescue party. He said they had gone on a ship and crew were planning to eat Freddy. The sailors had said that they might try going to Santa Claus’ house.

Later, in the woods of Canada, two children and a bear joined the rescue party. However, it soon was discovered that Ferdinand forgot to bring food and clothing for the animals. Everything looked grim for Ferdinand for a minute, but he suddenly came up with the idea for a lecture tour. The animals of the woods brought in food and clothing they found in the woods.

Also, a few weeks later Charles and Jack, a dog, wandered away and were captured by some wolves. The animals, Charles and Jack, managed to drive the wolves away with the help of some ants. They finally arrived at Santa Claus’ house. The animals found Freddy there and also found a problem: The sailors were trying to turn Santa Claus's irregular workshop into an ordinary, assembly line factory.

The animals tried to make the sailors leave. They played ghosts, but one sailor wasn't scared. Then, Freddy sent the captain, Mr. Hooker, a treasure map. He thought all the sailors would go with him, but instead, he tried to get all of it for himself. Freddy and Jinx chased after him and took it back. Later, the whole crew of the ship was shown the map.

The sailors left and Santa Claus's workshop went back to normal. Santa Claus took the animals and the two children to the Bean Farm.

In the early 1960s, Sandy, Boo, Scollop and Robbie drive to the beaches north of Sydney for a surfing weekend. The boys are planning to give Sandy a memorable 'one last fling' before his impending marriage. Tension flares between university-educated Sandy and ocker Boo when Sandy decides not to join in the fun. At a local dance, Boo seduces Caroline, the teenage daughter of a caravan park owner who discovers what has happened and comes looking for Boo with a gun.

In the early 1960s, Bobby Fontana (Lewis Smith), a young greaser-type rebel, challenges Joe Barnes (Mark Metcalf) to a game of chicken for making a pass at his girlfriend Emily (Jane Kaczmarek). Bobby wins the race easily when Joe dives out of his car, but Bobby is unable to get out of the car in time due to his bracelet getting caught on the gearshift. He dies as his car plummets over the cliff into a fiery wreck.

Bobby awakens to find himself aboard a speeding train, which stops at a station housing a huge escalator going up into a bright white light, which one of the attendants refers to as "Uptown". Bobby is denied entry, and Rafferty (Richard Mulligan) appears and explains that he is not yet considered ready and needs to carry out an "assignment" in order to earn his ticket Uptown. After many years in limbo, Bobby is finally given his assignment: he is to return to Earth and act as a guardian angel and friend for Lenny Barnes (Jason Gedrick), a promising high school student who is constantly picked on in school, particularly by school bullies Fred Gallo (Stephen Gregory) and Bill McIntyre (Beau Dremann). However, Bobby is instructed that he is only allowed to reveal himself to Lenny and nobody else.

Bobby helps Lenny by giving him a makeover, assisting him in dealing with Fred and Bill, and helping him win the affection of the hottest girl in school, Sharon (Anne Sawyer). However, Bobby comes to realize that the new lifestyle Lenny is leading is not noble, as it causes him to rebel against everyone, including his parents and long-time friend Melissa (Nancy Valen). Bobby discovers that Lenny's mother is Emily, his former girlfriend, and is married to Joe, the man he was racing when he died. Bobby breaks the rules and reveals himself to Emily to confess his love for her, and Emily informs him that he is Lenny's father.

In a scene reminiscent of the opening sequence, Lenny is challenged to a race of chicken at the local quarry by Fred, Sharon's former boyfriend. Having been told by Rafferty that Lenny will die just as Bobby did earlier, Bobby offers to trade his own chance to move Uptown (essentially, his own immortal soul) to save Lenny's life. Much like Bobby's car race, the race ends with Lenny and Bobby flying over the edge of a cliff, and the car exploding in a fiery wreck. However, Bobby prevents Lenny from dying, and they climb up the cliff together. Bobby helps Lenny see the error of his ways as Lenny reunites with Melissa.

After bidding an emotional goodbye to Lenny, during which he tells him that they will always be best friends, Bobby offers himself to Rafferty to fulfill his end of the bargain by accepting a ride "Downtown" (essentially, to Hell). However, Rafferty explains that this will not be happening. Bobby incredulously asks why, since he had made a deal to trade his own soul for Lenny's second chance at life. Rafferty explains to Bobby that he had learned to love and value someone more than himself, and that is how one earned a ticket Uptown. Bobby and Rafferty fly into the sky on a motorbike, and Bobby boards the escalator to Uptown.

On New Year's Eve, Manhattan socialite Alison Hawkins returns home from the evening's festivities. As she feeds her fish before going to bed, she is strangled to death by an undetected intruder with a blue ribbon. It is the latest murder by a serial killer who has been terrorizing the city for eleven months.

The mayor, frustrated with the lack of progress in the case, tells NYPD commissioner Frank Starkey to bring in his brother, former detective Nick Starkey, being the only man brilliant enough to catch the killer. This is a controversial assignment for Frank because Nick left the force in disgrace two years earlier. Frank talks Nick into returning, but only on the condition that he be able to cook dinner the next night for Frank's wife, Christine, who is Nick's ex-girlfriend. After a press conference announcing Nick's reinstatement, Christine and Nick have dinner. Old wounds are opened, including mention of a canceled check which indicated that Frank was involved in the scandal that got Nick fired.

After reporting for work, Nick takes a different office than the one he was assigned because the light was not to the liking of his friend Ed, a painter. After getting Alcoa to add Ed to the payroll as his assistant, Nick begins work on the case. His first lead is to speak to the mayor's daughter, Bernadette, who was a friend of Alison. After Nick and Bernadette visit Alison's apartment, he decides to let her stay at his apartment because she is too frightened to return to her own.

Nick realizes that the previous murders occurred on dates that are prime numbers, all of which are among the twelve prime numbers possible up to the number 31. Because 5 is the only one of the prime numbers that has not been used, Nick deduces that the next murder will take place the following night, on the fifth of the month. However, Nick is seemingly proven wrong when a woman is strangled one day ahead of Nick's prediction, after which the killer leaps out the window to his death. Nick believes that this is a copycat killing, especially when he learns that the man broke a window, as opposed to picking a lock to gain entrance as in the other murders. Frank and the mayor consider the case closed and are content to be done with Nick.

Nick and Ed figure out that the position of the victims' buildings, when seen on a map of Manhattan, forms the constellation Virgo. They also realize that all the rooms in which the murders took place have windows on the front of the building, and that when the exterior positions of the windows are lined up together according to which floor they are on, they correlate to eleven notes in the chorus of the song "Calendar Girl". This enables them to identify where the killer will next strike.

Nick sets a trap with Bernadette as bait, outfitting her with a neck guard to prevent the killer from strangling her. The trio stakes out the room in a supply closet and witness the killer picking the lock to get into the apartment. They intercept the apartment's resident and send Bernadette in, where she is attacked. Nick breaks in and, after a prolonged struggle with the killer, subdues him. He then wraps him up in the hall carpet and delivers him to the police outside the building.

Yves, a fisherman, comes home after a tiring day of fishing and soon falls asleep. In his dream, he is visited by the Fairy of the Ocean, who leads him to a submarine. Yves is made Lieutenant-in-Command and sets off on a submarine voyage.

A panorama of undersea views follow, including shipwrecks, underwater grottoes, huge shellfish, sea nymphs, sea monsters, starfish, mermaids, and a ballet of naiads. The ballet is interrupted by Yves, whose inexperience with submarines leads him to run his craft aground on a rock. Yves leaves the wrecked submarine and chases after the departing naiads, but is attacked by huge fish and crabs. He escapes and travels past further underwater marvels, including underwater caves, anemones, corals, giant seahorses, and an octopus that attacks him. However, in vengeance for all the fish Yves has caught in his career, goddesses of the sea trap the fisherman in a net and let him fall into a gigantic hollow sponge, from which he struggles to escape.

Waking up from the dream, Yves realizes that he has fallen from his bed into his bathtub, and is entangled in his own fishing net. His neighbors and friends free him from the confusion, and he treats them all to drinks at the nearest café.

A strange "sea monster" has been rampaging the seas. The United States sends the naval vessel ''Abraham Lincoln'' to investigate. During their search, the vessel runs into the "monster,” and it damages their ship. The mysterious monster turns out to be ''Nautilus'', the technologically advanced submarine of Captain Nemo. After the attack, the ''Abraham Lincoln'' is adrift with no rudder. Then, a "strange rescue" takes place. Captain Nemo guides his submarine directly beneath the four people who had been aboard the ship and fallen into the sea during the attack. ''Nautilus'' surfaces, and Nemo's crew brings the four rescued individuals aboard the submarine. The four include master harpooner Ned Land, a professor Pierre Aronnax, his daughter, and the professor's assistant. Once aboard the submarine, the four must swear they will not attempt to escape. The captain introduces them to his vessel and the wonders of its underwater realm. He later takes them hunting on the seafloor.

Meanwhile, union soldiers in a runaway Union Army balloon are marooned on a mysterious island. The soldiers find a wild girl living alone. Soon the yacht of Charles Denver arrives at the island. A woman's ghost (Princess Daaker) has haunted Denver, a former British colonial officer in India, whom he attacked years ago. Rather than submit to him sexually, she had stabbed and killed herself. Denver then fled with her young daughter only to abandon her on the island. Long tormented by his crime, he returned to find the girl or determine what happened to her.

One soldier scheme to kidnap the child aboard Denver's yacht. Another hears of the plan and starts swimming to the yacht to rescue her. Simultaneously, Nemo discovers the yacht belongs to Denver, the enemy he has been seeking all these years. The ''Nautilus'' destroys the yacht with a torpedo, but Captain Nemo saves the girl and her rescuer.

In elaborate flashback scenes to India, Nemo reveals he is Prince Daaker and created the Nautilus to seek revenge on Charles Denver. It overjoyed him to discover that the abandoned wild girl is his long-lost daughter, but his emotion overcomes him, and he dies. His loyal crew buries him at the ocean bottom. They disband and set the ''Nautilus'' adrift.

Captain Nemo's submarine Nautilus rescues drowning passengers and takes them to an underwater city, Templemer (pronounced Temple-Meer) where they are told they will remain forever. These survivors include thieving brothers Barnaby and Swallow Bath, the cowardly Lomax, Helena Beckett and her son, and Senator Robert Fraser.

Nemo takes them on a city scuba tour, but Lomax attempts to steal diving gear and escape but is caught. Fraser seems taken with a musical performance given by the city's swimming teacher Mala, this noted by Joab, Nemo’s second in command.

Joab shows the Bath brothers how the city makes oxygen and fresh water and as a by-product gold, which is even thrown away. Joab advises them that no one has ever escaped Templemer. Lomax attempts to escape by using the oxygen machine to rupture the city's dome, but only manages to flood the machine’s control room, killing himself in the process. While this is happening, the Bath brothers sneak into the Forbidden Area where they discover a second submarine, the Nautilus II. Seeing the second submarine as their means of escape, the brothers enlist Fraser to help them.

Fraser learns how to operate the submarine. During training they ram and kill a vast Manta Ray-like creature accidentally created during the building of the city. Fraser tells Nemo he should leave as he is attempting to cut off the supply of weapons to the American Civil War. Nemo refuses, and offers Fraser a position at Templemer. This alienates Joab, who helps Fraser and the Baths steal Nautilus II, on condition they leave without bloodshed and allow the crew to return with the submarine intact.

They manage to take the submarine and are followed by Nemo in his submarine. Nemo explains there is fault with the Nautilus II's engines that means that it could explode. The chase is brief. Unable to match the speed of the escaping submarine, Nemo has Nautilus I sheer away, to try 'going under the reef.' Confused by their pursuers apparently giving up, Fraser asks the Nautilus II's first mate if there is 'a shorter way,' and is told 'yes, there is,' but that 'this ship is too large!'

A now desperate Fraser gives orders for 'crash speed.' As the submarine increases to flank an explosion causes the engines to fail, and out of control the ship strikes a reef before coming to a stop whilst still submerged. The crew with Fraser and the Baths put on diving gear and attempt to escape from the now flooding submarine, but Barnaby panics and drown.

Nautilus I approaches the wreck just in time to be buffeted violently as the bigger ship explodes; Joab is electrocuted as he is thrown against a control panel. Mortally wounded he confesses to Nemo that he helped Fraser to escape. Helena Beckett admits that she knew of the attempt, and that she and her son chose to stay. Mala reads Nemo a letter that Fraser left behind, in which he thanks Nemo for offering him a place in the city's future, but that he cannot accept, as he believes in his mission, and the 'slower, more painful process' towards peace.

The film closes as Nautilus turns towards Templemer. On the surface, a small schooner is seen picking up two men in mid-ocean, far from either land or any sign of wreckage. Fraser and Swallow Bath, huddled in blankets, are taken aboard, and as the schooner prepares to set sail, Fraser finds his companion has concealed a gold ladle under his coat. The two exchange rueful smiles, and Fraser tosses it lightly into the sea.

The ''Nautilus'' has been sinking and damaging ships and is at first thought to be a giant narwhal.

Pierre Aronnax and Ned Land and Cabe Attucks fall off the USS ''Abraham Lincoln'' and are picked up by the ''Nautilus''.

Pierre's widowed father, Thierry Aronnax, is with the US naval party. Thierry has always been hateful and bitter toward his son, because the boy's mother died while giving birth to him.

Nemo is setting up an underwater domed city under the Atlantic south of West Africa. To avoid earthquake risks to it, he is first setting up a network of underwater explosives to release all Earth's geotectonic tensions at once and thus ensure that no more build up for a long while. During this a Chinese-looking pearl diving girl accidentally activates one of these devices and the ''Nautilus'' rescues her in time.

Nemo has a daughter, Mara.

The US Navy finds where Nemo's base is by a concentrated area of sightings of the ''Nautilus''. The USS ''Abraham Lincoln'' sails to the place.

At the site, damage caused by Ned Land, and torpedoes fired downwards by the ''Abraham Lincoln'', force the ''Nautilus'' to surface. The ''Nautilus'''s crew come out on deck and are summarily machine-gunned by the ''Abraham Lincoln'''s deck-mounted Gatling guns. Mara and some others escape in one of the ''Nautilus'''s diving bells. Pierre Aronnax and Ned Land and Cabe Attucks get on board the ''Abraham Lincoln''. A US naval man boards the ''Nautilus'' and shoots Nemo and another survivor on sight. Nemo, before dying, activates a switch which makes the ''Nautilus'' explode.

Pierre Aronnax's account of these events finds its way to Jules Verne, who uses it as a basis for his novel ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea''.

Justy Kaizard is the most powerful esper in the known universe, and he works as a member of the Galaxy Patrol System Cosmo Police to bring down esper criminals. During one such takedown, he killed Magnamum Vega while his young daughter Astaris was watching. After the fight, she transformed from a young girl into a young woman and attacked him. While he was wounded in her attack, she forgot everything. Justy took the girl home and began raising her as his younger sister with the help of Jelna Flarestar.

Because he has brought down over 200 esper criminals since joining the Cosmo Police, the rest of the esper criminals are willing to do anything to get rid of Justy. To this end, they hijack a civilian shuttle transport and demand that Astaris, Magnamum's daughter, be brought in exchange for the passengers on board the transport. Justy is assigned to take her there, but as she is making the EVA journey between ships, a group of the criminal espers joins together using telepathy to make her remember what happened to her father and who was responsible for it.

Astaris begins attacking the policeman, destroying Justy's ship and using more and more power to try to break through his defenses. Worried for the safety of the nearby transport, Justy uses his powers to teleport it away from the fight. In doing so, he lets down his guard and Astaris is able to hit him with the full force of her powers, causing him to disappear. The criminal espers believe they have destroyed him, so they take the transport with all the hostages and warp away, leaving Astaris floating in space. Astaris comes out of her rage and begins wondering what happened and where Justy went. She then falls asleep, exhausted. After the shuttle leaves, Justy appears and rescues the sleeping Astaris, promising to bring the criminal espers to justice for using her in their ploy.

After surrounding Astaris in a protective bubble, Justy warps after the escaping transport. On teleporting into the transport, Justy eliminates three of the hijackers before the others teleport in an attempt to escape, and easily follows them. He handily defeats all but four after demanding that they return Astaris to the way she was. The remaining four combine their powers to try to defeat Justy, but he eliminates them one by one until he's down to the ringleader. He tells him that Astaris is his beloved younger sister now, and proceeds to eliminate him.

Justy returns and rescues Astaris, and the voiceover as they return shows that Astaris remembers nothing of her attack on Justy and has returned to loving him as her heroic older brother. The show ends with Justy and his partner going out on another mission.

The film is set in a non-specific time in history. The land is ruled by the tyrannical Lord of the Castle, Von Wurtzburg, who taxes the citizens to a point where most can only afford to wear burlap sacks. Those unable to pay are executed. Robin Hood emerges to foil the Lord's cronies' attempts at terrorizing the citizens. He joins forces with Will Scarlet, whom he saves during his introduction, as well as Friar Tuck and Long John (a smaller version of Little John). Robin is also encounters the inventor Leonardo when he shoots him down from the sky while he tests his flying machine. Leonardo escaped his beautiful but nagging wife and assists Robin with a number of inventions.

The film secondarily follows Sir Wilhelm, whose lands Von Wurtzburg wants. After failing to assassinate him, with traps set up by his henchman Iron Glove, he plans to wed Sir Wilhelm to his daughter, Helena, and murder him later. However, Robin Hood's gang manage to capture Von Wurtzburg's wife-to-be Venla as well as her dowry. The enraged Von Wurtzburg decides to have Sir Wilhelm masquerade as Robin Hood to capture the bandits. Sir Wilhelm is unsuccessful though, as Robin's gang imprison him, but is let loose by Venla. In the end, Sir Wilhelm returns to the castle, for some reason, with a map of where the dowry is hidden which the Lord claims (in the film, he claims to have stolen it but no scene in the film indicates this). In the meanwhile, Robin's gang trade Venla back for gold via a wench system developed by Leonardo.

Von Wurtzburg finds the hidden dowry and returns it to the castle. However, Will Scarlet hides in one of the chests and infiltrates the Lord's treasury. He fools the guards into opening the door and Robin's gang is able to clear out Von Wurtzburg's treasury. Scarlet, however, is captured during the escape attempt. When Scarlet is about to be executed by hanging, Robin swoops in to rescue him from the gallow and rides off only to discover that the bagged prisoner is actually Iron Glove. Robin and his crew end up captured one-by-one through failed break out attempts. Von Wurtzburg has Robin and Iron Glove fight in arm wrestling but eventually he decides to duel him man-to-man, albeit with Robin's hands tied to a poll behind his neck. Robin and his men make a daring escape.

Finally, Von Wurtzburg is about to marry Venla when the sympathetic Sir Wilhelm and Helena help Venla escape. Simultaneously, Robin's gang rally the peasants into an uprising as the Lord's soldiers head into the woods to look for the escaped Venla. A massive battle ensues, during which Leonardo is reunited with his wife while making a hot air balloon. He then flies over Von Wurtzburg's castle and drops an explosive, destroying the castle and bringing the fighting to an end. Venla winds up with Robin Hood and Von Wurtzburg, who has been led to believe Sir Wilhelm is just Hood in disguise, learns that Sir Wilhelm and his daughter have also fallen in love. The film ends with the now destitute Von Wurzburg working the fields.

The action of the play is in the mid-1950s, and takes place on Cannery Row in Monterey, California. In the Steinbeck book which forms the basis for the musical, the Bear Flag is a bordello and Suzy a prostitute. This is alluded to in the musical, but never expressed outright.

Act 1

In the early morning hours, marine biologist Doc is already at work in his one-man Western Biological Laboratory, getting an order of starfish ready to be shipped to a university. His unintelligent friend Hazel (a man) comes in to chat with him ("All Kinds of People"). Millicent, a wealthy young lady, enters from the next room, where she has been spending (part of) the night with Doc. Mac, another friend of Doc, brings in Suzy, who has injured her hand breaking a window to steal some donuts. Doc, whose lack of a medical degree does not stop the denizens of Cannery Row from seeking him out for treatment, bandages her hand, as the irritated Millicent leaves. Suzy, new in town, is curious about Doc's work ("The Tide Pool") and tells about her journey from San Francisco ("Everybody's Got a Home but Me"). Fauna, who runs the nearby Bear Flag Café—an establishment open even at this hour—had heard that a new girl in town had injured herself, and has come to talk to Suzy. Fauna is initially reluctant to invite Suzy into the Bear Flag, but when Jim, the local plainclothes cop gives Suzy a hard time, Fauna takes Suzy in. Suzy is fully aware of what kind of a place it is.

The Palace Flophouse, where Mac, Hazel, and other locals reside, is a storage shed behind the Chinese store now owned by Joe the Mexican, and the Flophouse residents muse on their awkward path through life ("A Lopsided Bus"). Fauna comes by briefly to tell Hazel that she has run his "horror scope" and that he will one day be President. The Flophouse boys have a problem: Joe the Mexican acts unaware that he owns the shed; he has not appeared to either demand rent or to kick them out. They would like to know whether Joe is aware of his ownership, without tipping him off. The boys come up with the idea of raffling off their shed, with the raffle rigged so that Doc, who would not kick them out, will be the winner. The prize money will allow Doc to buy the microscope he needs for his scientific work. They sound out Joe about the scheme; he offers to sell tickets in his store and displays no awareness that he owns the shed.

Suzy and Doc are attracted to each other; she has in fact been quietly tidying his rooms while he is down at the tide pool catching specimens ("The Man I Used to Be"). Fauna tries to persuade Doc, who is very successful with the ladies, to woo Suzy. When Doc is dismissive, Fauna explains that she wants to get Suzy out of the Bear Flag when it is taken over for the night by a private party. Doc agrees to take Suzy out and treat her like a lady. Fauna goes back to the Bear Flag ("Sweet Thursday"), and works to give Suzy confidence ("Suzy is a Good Thing"). Doc and Suzy's date is the source of great interest to the people of Cannery Row. Both are nervous; Doc wears an unaccustomed necktie, while Suzy tries to act like a lady, but her polish wears thin at times. ("All At Once You Love Her"). At the end of the meal, they decide to continue the evening on a secluded sand dune.

Act 2

The next morning, the girls of the Bear Flag are exhausted; the members of the private party wore them out. As word spreads of the celebration, the community becomes enthusiastic about the get-together ("The Party That We're Gonna Have Tomorrow Night")

At the Flophouse, a wild celebration takes place. Fauna, at first in the costume of a witch, seems to transform her costume into that of a Fairy Godmother. After some sleight of hand with the tickets, Doc wins the raffle, to the surprise of some. When Suzy comes out in a white bride's dress and sings her lines, Doc is unimpressed, and Suzy is humiliated. As both stalk off in opposite directions, the party disintegrates into a brawl.

Suzy gets a job at a burger joint, and moves into an abandoned boiler, with entry through the attached pipe. Doc is unhappy, and Hazel decides something has to be done ("Thinkin' "). He is unable to come up with an answer, and eventually forgets the question. Some weeks pass, and Joe the Mexican woos Suzy. He has no success, and his attempts irritate Doc. The next day, Doc himself approaches the pipe with flowers in hand ("How Long?"), still uncertain as to why he is seeking a girl like Suzy. Suzy lets him in the boiler, which she has fitted up in a homelike manner. She is doing well at the burger joint, but is grateful to Fauna for giving her confidence. She is confident enough, indeed, to reject Doc, who is unhappy, but philosophical ("The Next Time It Happens").

Hazel sees Doc even more dispirited than before, and asks Suzy for an explanation. Suzy says that she is not willing to go over and be with Doc, but "if he was sick or if he bust his leg or an arm or something", she would go to him and bring him soup. The wheels in Hazel's head begin unaccustomed turnings, and sometime later when Mac passes Hazel on the street, Mac is surprised to see his friend carrying a baseball bat. When the scene returns to Doc's lab, he is receiving treatment from a real doctor and trying to puzzle out how he broke his arm. Suzy comes in, and makes soup for him as Hazel and Mac take turns watching at the keyhole. Doc admits that he needs and loves Suzy, and they embrace. As Fauna and the girls arrive, so do the other Flophouse boys, and Mac gives Doc what was bought with the raffle money—the largest (tele)scope in the catalog. ("Finale")

Jack Walsh (McDonald) is hired by bail bondsman Eddie Moscone (Dan Hedaya) to bring in Bernie Abbot (Jeffrey Tambor) and Helen Bishop (Cathy Moriarty), a husband and wife team of con artists. Moscone also brings in rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler (Ed O'Ross) to work with Jack, with the agreement that they will split the money; however, both men are planning to double cross each other.

One evening near the small Serbian village of Stetl early in the 19th century, schoolmaster Albert Müller witnesses his wife Anna taking a little girl, Jenny Schilt, into the castle of Count Mitterhaus, a reclusive nobleman rumoured to be a vampire responsible for the disappearances of other children. The rumours prove true, as Anna, who has become Mitterhaus' willing acolyte and mistress, gives Jenny to him to be drained of her blood. Men from the village, directed by Müller and including Jenny's father Mr. Schilt and the Bürgermeister, invade the castle and attack the Count. After the vampire kills several of them, Müller succeeds in driving a wooden stake through his heart. With his dying breath, Mitterhaus curses the villagers, vowing that their children will die to give him back his life. The angry villagers force Anna to run a gauntlet, but when her husband intervenes, she runs back into the castle where the briefly revived Count tells her to find his cousin Emil at "the Circus of Night". After laying his body in the crypt, she escapes through a tunnel as the villagers blow up the castle with gunpowder and set fire to it.

Fifteen years later, Stetl is being ravaged by a plague and blockaded by the authorities of neighbouring towns, with men ready to shoot any villager who tries to leave. The citizens fear that the pestilence may be due to the Count's curse, though the new physician Dr. Kersh dismisses vampires as just a myth. A travelling circus, calling itself the Circus of Night, then arrives at the village, directed by a dwarf and an alluring gypsy woman who are equivocal about how they got past the blockade; the villagers, appreciative of the distraction from their troubles, do not much question the matter. No-one in the village suspects that one of the circus artists, Emil, is Count Mitterhaus's cousin and a vampire, as are the twin acrobats Heinrich and Helga. Emil and the gypsy woman go to the ruins of the castle, where in the crypt they find the Count's staked body still preserved, and they restate his curse that all who killed him and all their children must die.

Whilst his son Anton distracts the armed men at the blockade, Dr. Kersh gets past them to appeal for help from the capital. At the Circus of Night, the villagers are amazed and delighted by the entertainment. Despite his wife's concerns over their wayward daughter, Rosa, and her attraction to the handsome Emil, the Bürgermeister takes her to the circus and, at the gypsy woman's invitation, visits its hall of mirrors where he sees, in one called "The Mirror of Life", a vision of a revived Count Mitterhaus, which causes him to collapse. Frightened by this event, Schilt tries to flee with his family from the blockaded village with the circus dwarf Michael as their guide, only to be abandoned by him in the forest and mauled to death by Emil, whose shapeshifting form is a black panther.

Müller's daughter Dora, whom he sent away earlier for her protection, has slipped past the blockade and is returning to the village to reunite with her father and her beloved Anton when she discovers the Schilts' dismembered bodies, arousing suspicions about the animals of the circus. That evening, Jon and Gustav Hauser, two village boys whose father helped instigate the killing of Mitterhaus, are invited by the gypsy woman to enter the hall of mirrors and are magically drawn by Heinrich and Helga to the Count's crypt, where they are killed and drained. After the boys' bodies are found near the castle, their grieving father and the sick Bürgermeister begin to shoot the circus animals. After an encounter with Emil the Bürgermeister dies of heart failure, and his daughter leaves with the vampire. The vampire then kills and drains her in the crypt.

Dora and Anton are lured by the twins into the hall of mirrors where they try to whisk Dora through the Mirror of Life, but the cross she is wearing saves her. Later, the vampires enter the school house where Dora and Anton have taken refuge. Emil, in panther form, kills the boarding students, diverting Anton, while the gypsy woman (revealed to be Anna Müller and the twins' mother) tears the cross from Dora's neck, enabling Heinrich and Helga to attack her. Dora, however, escapes into the school chapel, where the twins are overwhelmed by a giant crucifix which she topples on them, destroying them. Nevertheless, with the help of the circus strongman, Emil and Anna succeed in having Dora and her guardian, Hauser's wife Gerta, kidnapped and taken to the crypt at Castle Mitterhaus, where they intend to use their blood - just like the blood from their previous child victims - as part of a ritual to restore the Count back to life.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kersch returns from the capital with an imperial escort and medicines for the plague. He also brings news of vampire killings in other villages, all of them visited by the Circus of Night. The men attack the circus and set fire to it, killing the strongman when he tries to stop them. As Hauser starts to burn down the hall of mirrors, he sees in the Mirror of Life a vision of Emil and Anna bleeding Gerta over the Count's body. This horrifying sight distracts him long enough to be burned fatally by the fire, but he lives long enough to alert Anton and the other men to Dora's plight.

Back in the castle crypt, the suddenly remorseful Anna is killed when she attempts to save Dora from Emil. Anton, finding his way through the tunnel into the crypt despite a deadly ambush by Michael the dwarf, attempts to rescue Dora but is halted by Emil. Just then Müller, Dr. Kersh, and a soldier break into the crypt and battle Emil who kills or disables all his attackers, but Müller pierces him with the stake from the Count's chest just as he is dying from Emil's bite. Revived by the stake's removal, the Count rises from his sarcophagus and advances on Dora and Anton. Anton uses Müller's crossbow as a makeshift cross, repelling the Count long enough for him to jam the vampire's neck between the weapon's bow and stock and then pulling the trigger, decapitating him. As Dr. Kersh leads Dora and Anton from the tomb, he and the villagers set the ruins afire with torches, ending the curse, but Dora and Anton see a bat fly out of the tomb into the night and are left uncertain.

Lannie Waters (Traci Lords) wakes after dreaming about nude women floating in space. She wonders aloud about her sexuality and inexperience. Her mother (Helga Sven) brings up boys and tells her about a new man, Mr. Kennedy (Don Hodge), whom she believes likes Lannie, but who is too shy to say anything.

Mark Radner (Shone Taylor), the son of a well-to-do suburban family, hangs out with his friends, Jeff (Tom Byron) and Kevin (Marc Wallice). Kevin talks about his encounters with Debbie; meanwhile, Jeff gets teased about not "getting laid." Mark reveals that his maid Sarah (Dorothy Onan) has been stealing, but also that he has not informed his parents, because he wants to blackmail her. He meets her outside in the garden, and brings her upstairs. He orders her to remove her uniform, then she starts servicing him and his friends before they have sex with her.

By the side of a pool, Debbie (Bunny Bleu) goes topless with Cheryl (Susan Hart) also present. A self-conscious Lannie follows, as the three girls talk about sex and boys. Cheryl talks about losing her virginity while babysitting after calling Bill (Greg Rome) over. She was nervous about giving oral sex at first, as she admits, but he made her comfortable.

Mark's mother, Mrs. Radner (Maria Kay), shows up with her boyfriend (Herschel Savage). Though angered with him for having driven too fast, she soon gets over it and comes on to him. He, for his part, is worried that her son is home, but she reassures him (incorrectly) that Mark is out. They have sex on the fountain as Mark secretly watches. Mrs. Waters and Mr. Kennedy conduct themselves similarly, next to the pool where the girls were conversing.

Instead of going outside as planned, Lannie, Jeff, Debbie and Kevin meet for a “picnic” inside the house. Jeff takes Lannie to the kitchen after getting a signal from Kevin. When Lannie's dress gets wet, she teases Jeff, then removes the dress. Jeff, overwhelmed, ejaculates on himself. Debbie teases Kevin before sex. Lannie goes home and masturbates about Jeff. The scene cuts back and forth between Lannie touching herself, and the imagined sexual encounter outside on a picnic table.

Mark calls Kevin, then invites Debbie, Kevin's girlfriend, to his home. Once Debbie shows up, Mark orders her to undress, then lie on the bed and close her eyes. After she has done that, he brings Wendy (Leslie Thane) and Louis (David Sanders) over to her. Wendy performs cunnilingus on Debbie until Mark tells her to open her eyes. Mark has sex with Wendy, while Debbie does Louis, until they switch partners. Excited by the encounter, Debbie calls Lannie and tells her that she is breaking up with Kevin, whom she dismisses as “a boy,” in favor of going steady with “a man” like Mark. Lannie decides that she knows what gets her hot. She hangs up and looks over at her friend Cheryl lying beside her.

In London in 1750, renowned English actor David Garrick announces onstage that he has been invited to Paris to work with the prestigious Comédie-Française. A fop in a box seat declares that the French want Garrick to teach them how to act, and the audience chants, "Teach the French!" The playwright Beaumarchais attributes the remark to Garrick himself. The outraged French actors, led by their president, Picard, take over the inn where he will be staying, and Beaumarchais devises a plot to humiliate Garrick publicly.

On the road to Paris, Garrick meets Jean Cabot, an elderly admirer who once acted with him in ''Hamlet'' and now works as a Comédie-Française prompter. Cabot—who was tossed out of the Comedie-Française meeting when he protested that Garrick might be innocent—has ridden non-stop for two days to warn the actor, although he does not know the details of the plot. Cabot advises him to travel straight to Paris. Garrick decides to stop at the inn as planned and play along, despite the misgivings of his valet/companion Tubby and Cabot's concern that there may be violence.

At the inn, Picard tries to rally his cast, but meets with temperament and histrionics on every side, particularly from Basset, whose insistence on playing a madman is quite maddening. They plan to discomfort the Englishman with a near miss from a falling trunk; a seemingly fatal duel with swords; a shootout between a husband and his wife's lover; Basset's mad waiter; and finally, an attack from a violent blacksmith.

Garrick and Tubby arrive at the inn, and the "blacksmith," drunk and lacking a script, mistakes his cue and smashes one of the carriage wheels. Garrick adroitly steps out of the way of the falling luggage and is unperturbed when the duelists cross swords over his dinner.

A complication arises in mid-performance when Germaine Dupont, Countess de la Corbe, appears at the inn. Her coach has broken down. Garrick believes she is one of the actresses, when she is actually fleeing a marriage arranged by her father. He plays along, offering her his room. Over the course of the evening, they fall in love.

After an entertaining evening, Garrick overhears the "blacksmith" reviewing his script and reminding himself to hit the anvil with his hammer and not Garrick's head. He disguises himself as the blacksmith and, pretending to be drunk, tells the aghast troupe that he has struck and killed their intended victim. Tubby rages at them and demands that someone call out the guard. The actors plan to flee. Then Garrick reveals his identity.

He does not betray Cabot. There is no need, as he easily reveals the flaws in their performances. Garrick adds that he admires the Comédie Française and never said anything so stupid as the remark that precipitated this farce.

In her room, he storms at Germaine for her bad acting, including her bad kissing. Infuriated, she responds that she does not have much experience, but does not correct his mistake. Garrick leaves her with the furious advice that she quit the stage.

Downstairs, Picard apologizes on behalf of the company and begs Garrick to join them in Paris. Garrick graciously accepts.

At his premiere in Paris, about to play Don Juan for the first time, Garrick searches the stage for Germaine. He learns from Picard that she is not a member of the company. Realizing that she was telling the truth and that he actually loves her, he declares that he is too distraught to perform ever again, unless he finds her. He goes out to announce this to the audience and sees Germaine in a box, beaming. He is struck dumb. In the prompt box, Jean Cabot holds up a black board that reads: "I met her at the stable. I explained. She knows, understands, forgives, loves." Inspired, Garrick launches into a speech about being in love. Germaine is at first delighted, then becomes worried when it seems he will reveal her name—however Garrick identifies his new love as la belle France. She tosses a flower to him.

Nicolo Polo shows treasures from China and sends his son Marco Polo (Gary Cooper) there with his assistant (and comic relief) Binguccio (Ernest Truex). They sail from Venice, are shipwrecked, and cross the desert of Persia and the mountains of Tibet to China, to seek out Peking and the palace of China's ruler, Kublai Khan (George Barbier).

The philosopher/fireworks-maker Chen Tsu (H. B. Warner) is the first friend they make in the city, and invites them into his home for a meal of spaghetti. Children explode a firecracker, and Marco thinks it could be a weapon. Meanwhile, at the Palace, Ahmed (Basil Rathbone), the Emperor's adviser, harboring dubious ambitions of his own, convinces Emperor Kublai Khan that his army of a million men can conquer Japan.

Kublai Khan promises Princess Kukachin (Sigrid Gurie) to the King of Persia. Marco, arriving at the palace, sees Kukachin praying for a handsome husband. Marco is granted an audience with the emperor at the same time as a group of ladies-in-waiting arrive; Kublai Khan lets Marco test the maidens to find out which are the most worthy. Marco tests them all with a question ("How many teeth does a snapping turtle have?"), and he sends off the ones who had incorrectly guessed the answer, as well as those who had told him the correct answer (none), retaining those saying they did not know. His reasoning behind this is that they are the perfect ladies-in-waiting, not overly intelligent, and honest. Kublai agrees and Marco immediately becomes a favored guest. Ahmed shows Marco his private tower with vultures and executes a spy via a trapdoor into a lion pit. Kukachin tells Marco that she is going to marry the King of Persia, but, having fallen in love with her, he shows her what a kiss is. A guard tells Ahmed, who vows to keep Marco out of the way. Ahmed then advises Kublai Khan to send Marco into the desert to spy on suspected rebels. Kukachin warns Marco of the deceiving Ahmed.

A mad scientist named Dr. Buc Ooze has been conducting "controversial research into animal shaping" and has left many animals misshapen or in otherwise unnatural forms. In response, a machine called the "ZooCube" is created which reverses the effects Dr. Ooze's experiments. The player, named "Aon", is tasked with rescuing all the trapped animals, traveling aboard a "flying ark" and armed with the "ZooCube".

Reporter Jean Christy (Rosalind Russell) works for a newspaper in danger of being thrown away by its young owner, Pat Buckley (Patric Knowles), after Buckley has a falling-out with the editor-in-chief, Robert Lansford (Errol Flynn). Meanwhile, Lansford hopes to gain tycoon John Dillingwell's (Walter Connolly) business for his public relations firm, and uses his position at Buckley's paper to drum up good press for Dillingwell. In the process, he discovers that Dillingwell's granddaughter Lorri (Olivia de Havilland) is Buckley's fiancée. Lansford decides to try to charm Lorri, while Christy makes a play for Buckley.

In the distant future, the Earth's resources have been depleted, and many of earth's inhabitants are moving to the new, artificial solar system called IOTA Synthetica. The solar system, like all the solar systems created by the "Galactic Federation", is very hip and up-scale.

This image ended abruptly though, as a mysterious wave of cosmic radiation swept through the solar system. This radiation caused ordinary inanimate objects to spring to life, and attack the solar system's residents.

The Galactic Federation, realizing the situation was beyond their control, calls on Commander Gun-Nac, son of the Legendary Xan, to save IOTA Synthetica from the ensuing destruction from this strange cosmic energy.

The texts for ''The Martian Chronicles'' versions of "There Will Come Soft Rains" are the same except for dates. The differences between the original and ''The Martian Chronicles'' stories may seem minor, but some are significant. In particular, the ''Chronicles'' version indicates the author's intent on strengthening the anti-war message of the story by commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and implicitly emphasizing the pacifistic sentiments of Sara Teasdale. In addition, the ''Chronicles'' version presents a leaner, more refined narrative with the omission of a prologue contained in the original and several changes to sentence structure.

Plot for ''The Martian Chronicles'' 1997 edition

(Note: The events in the short story in the first edition of ''The Martian Chronicles'' take place in 2026. Dates were advanced because events in the novel covered the years 1999 to 2026. As 1999 approached, all dates were advanced 31 years to keep the ''Chronicles'' in the reader's future.)

"August 2057: There Will Come Soft Rains" is about the operation and destruction of an unoccupied, highly automated house in Allendale, California that is the residence of the McClellan family, starting in the waking hours of August 4, 2057 and ending in the morning of the next day. The narrative follows the house operating as if it was occupied, including automated announcements, meal preparation, after-meal clean up, bed preparation, house cleaning, yard maintenance, and entertainment. In particular, the house, during the morning prepares the family for employment and school on a rainy day. The morning routine includes watering an outdoor yard and garden that reveals that a nuclear bomb destroyed the rest of Allendale, and that the explosion singed the western face of the house except in places where objects were directly in front of it. The singed face captured an image of people, presumably members of the McClellan family, unaware of any danger, at the moment they were incinerated by the bomb blast. At noon, the family's dog, suffering from radiation exposure, finds its way into the house and dies moments later, and then its corpse is disposed by the house's cleaning systems two hours later. The afternoon routine includes setting up an outdoor patio for a bridge game and animating, using film projectors, a nursery to entertain children. The evening routine includes the house's automation asking Mrs. McClellan whether she would like to hear a poem, and upon receiving no response, reciting "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale, who is noted by the entertainment system as Mrs. McClellan's favorite poet. After ten o'clock at night, a wind-blown tree branch crashes through the kitchen window and causes cleaning solvent to spill over the stove and ignite. The fire spreads and the house's automated systems try to fight and contain it while other automated systems start to malfunction. The automated efforts fail to stop the fire and by the following morning, the house is a collapsed, smoldering ruin, except for a single wall that contains the announcement system which continues to operate, though defectively, endlessly repeating, "Today is August 5, 2057", ending the story.

Plot differences with the ''Collier's'' magazine original publication

This section provides a list of significant differences between the original and the ''Chronicles'' versions of the short story in the 1997 edition.

• The original story's events occur on April 28 and April 29, 1985, compared to August 4 and August 5, 2057 in ''The Martian Chronicles.'' The change in dates reflects Bradbury's shift to commemorate the date for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II rather than to have events occur during Spring consistent with Teasdale's poem.
• The original story begins with a two paragraph prologue that was omitted from the ''Chronicles'' version. The first paragraph notes that the house was built in 1980, that it was like many other houses built that year, and that it was occupied by the nuclear four-member McClellan family, who "lived happily even while the world trembled". The single sentence second paragraph mentions "the happy time was over" for the McClellans by describing the advent of a nuclear war that occurs on a date that is not mentioned.
• The ''Chronicles'' version includes the opening of a garage door at 8:01am to allow the departure of the automobile inside.
• The dog enters the house at 10:15am in the original version and at noon in the ''Chronicles'' version. The dog's corpse is removed starting at 1:00pm in the original version and at 2:00pm in the ''Chronicles'' version.
• The original story does not include the 4:30pm animation of the nursery to entertain children present in the ''Chronicles'' version. Bradbury uses the film projection for children to enhance the separation from nature theme in that the animated cartoons are fantasies created by humans as opposed to depictions of real animals living in the natural world.
• For the recitation of Teasdale's poem, the original version mentions Teasdale as "a favorite" poet of Mrs. McClellan, while the ''Chronicles'' version mentions Teasdale as her "favorite" poet. The ''Chronicles'' version emphasizes Mrs. McClellan's familiarity with Teasdale's works.

Marge and Homer are making love in their room while playing a fake tape of them arguing so the kids will not come in. When a flying article of clothing hits the tape recorder and plays America's "A Horse with No Name", Bart and Lisa decide to come in. Bart ends up traumatized by the sight and is an emotional wreck the following day. While he is coping, Nelson coerces Bart and Milhouse for their lunch money but also invites him and the rest of the class to his upcoming birthday party. Although Bart convinces all his friends not to go to Nelson's birthday party, Marge makes him attend. After the party, Bart becomes Nelson's new best friend and under Nelson's protection no one dares to mess with Bart. However, there is only one drawback to his newfound friend/bodyguard: he is no longer able to pal around with Milhouse because Nelson has never had a best friend before and is overly protective and jealous. Eventually, Nelson discovers that Bart had been playing with Milhouse, which leads him to no longer consider Bart a friend. He eventually decides to forgive Bart, however Bart tells Nelson that he thinks he is a psycho. Later, during a field trip to some tidepools, Nelson confronts Bart in a cave, telling Bart he is a bad friend. Suddenly, high tide comes and Nelson saves Bart (but only because they were field trip buddies). Later, Bart goes home and remembers the good times he had with Nelson while hugging a "Nelson vest" he had received.

Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Homer finds himself hooked on one of Lisa's fantasy books, choosing to read an Angelica Button book to Lisa. Homer eventually reads ahead and finds that one of the characters, Greystash, is killed while trying to save Angelica. Upon hearing that Greystash dying would be the end of Lisa's childhood, Homer is unable to bring himself to read the last chapter to Lisa, and improvises a happy ending instead involving Greystash defeating the evil wizard. Afterwards, Lisa reads the real ending and nonchalantly decides that Homer's ending was better. During the credits, Homer is seen at Moe's Tavern, still mourning the loss of Greystash while screaming, "No man should have to outlive his fictional wizard!".

After writing to a televised sex-help program, Peggy decides that the best way to rekindle her relationship with Al is to have sex in a different location. Upon Marcy's recommendation, Peggy and Al go to the Hop-On-Inn and discover a videotape waiting for them in their room. After watching some of the tape, the Bundys realize that the couple having sex on the video are Steve and Marcy. Although Al is disgusted, the action turns Peggy on and the couple has sex.

Peggy and Al return home and show the tape to Steve and Marcy, who are embarrassed by the film, much to the delight of the Bundys. The Rhoades express their dismay that they were secretly recorded, but Steve points out that the Bundys may have been videotaped as well. Marcy and Al are upset by this violation of their privacy and propose physical violence against the owners of the motel. Steve and Peg, on the other hand, want to take action against the Hop-On-Inn and make money from the incident.

Peggy convinces Al to sue the motel with her and the Rhoades. Steve, not wanting a lawyer to take any of the million dollars he expects to win from the case, decides to act as one for the two families. The case begins with Steve presenting a lengthy opening statement, during which the stenographer and the judge fall asleep. Next, Steve shows the subpoenaed sex tapes from the motel, despite objections from his wife. After a few hours, the tape runs out and the courtroom applauds Steve and Marcy's romp. Next, Steve shows Peggy and Al's tape, which ends after a few seconds.

After the plaintiff rests, the defense lawyer calls Marcy, Al, and Peggy to the stand. She asks Marcy a series of embarrassing questions, hoping to prove Marcy knew that the camera was there. Her tactic with the Bundys is to try to prove sexual intercourse did not occur on the videotape. In the end, the Rhoades are awarded $10,000 but the Bundys receive nothing, because the jury does not believe that sex occurred. After everyone exits the courtroom, Al attempts to prove that he can perform when he wants to and has sex with Peggy for hours on the judge's bench, unwittingly while being recorded by the courtroom camera.

Catherine (Catherine Erhardt) is a sexually unfulfilled socialite who longs for the memory of her father. She spends much of her time in the attic, masturbating in front of a gothic mirror that reminds her of her childhood and teenage years with her father (Jamie Gillis). During one of her daily visits she encounters the ghost of her father in the mirror. The ghost masturbates her and draws her into the mirror to witness several sexually charged scenarios. These pique her interest and eventually culminate in a scene where Catherine witnesses her teenage self semi-reluctantly, then enthusiastically, take part in an incestuous encounter with her father. After her father is finished with the encounter, he remarks to Catherine that this was what she wanted. Before returning to reality, Catherine realizes that this is not her father but a demonic figure. She tries to deny his invitation to come into the mirror's realm as a permanent resident but the demon tells her that he knows that she will return as she always has in the past, as she is bored with the world and her husband. He tells her to return to the mirror at 1 am, but only after fulfilling a few conditions. She must not only throw all of her jewelry away, but she must also allow her daughter Jennifer to have unconditional access to the room so that the demon can watch her just as he watched Catherine grow.

This upsets Catherine, as she had previously forbid her daughter from entering the room and did not want to allow the demon access to Jennifer. She tries to get out of the late night encounter by trying to leave the house and persuade her husband to take her somewhere, but is unsuccessful. Later that night Catherine returns to the room and in a dream-like state begins to masturbate. The demon exits the mirror and while initially languid upon his approach, Catherine begins to struggle against his advances. He then violently rapes Catherine, who screams, which awakens the rest of the house. She eventually passes out, awakening in an horrific world where people degrade themselves and each another. Catherine is horror struck to realize that rather than the lavish world that had been promised to her, the demon has tricked her and that she is there because she chose to focus on sexual illusions and fulfilling her deepest desires rather than try to interact more with the world around her and improve herself as a person. She discovers her father in the sexual hell, which further terrifies her. Dodging the many people trying to sexually assault her, Catherine tries to escape but is unable to and succumbs to the madness of the hell. Her daughter sits in front of the mirror, becoming just as enraptured with it as her mother had been earlier.

The book's plot describes the way in which an outcast animal, ''the scub'', infiltrates the ark and introduces certain of the other species to the idea of eating meat. (Until this point, all the animals eat porridge with a dollop of treacle.) This sinister development is described alongside a good deal of slapstick humour. For example, the nautically naive Noah initially constructs the ark with all the large animals quartered together for social reasons, only discovering the consequences for its stability when the flood waters surround it.

Like many later fictionalisations of the Noah story, from Gary Larson to Julian Barnes, it introduces mythical beasts such as the unicorn into the Ark's passenger list, a device with obvious dramatic potential: we assume that such creatures are unlikely to survive the voyage. Here, as elsewhere, the comic elements mask tragic ones to good effect. Especially memorable is the plight of the 'Seventy-sevenses', a pair of nondescript and painfully shy mammals who name themselves after the number of their cabin, and who eventually abandon the Ark on a small raft because the atmosphere on board has become too oppressive. There was also an even sadder pair of animals "The Clidders" who melted when it began to rain!

Outwardly this is a de-theologised version of the story: God does not appear, and the purpose of the Flood is not mass drowning. Yet the way the scub creeps into the childish innocence of the Ark and subverts it still points to a narrative patterned by Christian concepts of the Fall. In the final scene, a horrified Noah – who has not yet realised quite what has happened on his ship – watches as the newly released animals chase and fly from one another, awakened to their new identities as hunters and hunted.

Set four years after the events of the first film, Allen Bauer (Todd Waring) and his wife, Madison (Amy Yasbeck) a mermaid, have been living on a deserted island hideaway. Allen is bored with life on the island and admits he misses New York City and his older brother, Freddie. Madison has the magical ability to view images in water and communicate by running her finger in a circular motion over it; she uses this method to show Allen how things are going on back in New York with Freddie (Donovan Scott).

The family business, Bauer Produce, is in trouble since Allen left. Completely overlooking the fact that, in the final moments of the first film, Madison informed Allen that neither would ever be able to return to the surface, Madison agrees to return to New York so Allen can help his brother. They are welcomed back by Freddie, and Allen manages to attract a potential new customer for Bauer Produce, the wealthy Karl Hooten (Noble Willingham). Karl places importance on all-American family values, so Allen and Madison are to present themselves as a typical happily married couple. Freddie gives them a run-down suburban house for them to move into, which they manage to restore into presentable condition.

Madison agrees to be a housewife and adjust to life on land. She also has to keep her mermaid side a secret, especially from their new neighbor, Mrs. Needler (Doris Belack). When Allen's work takes up more of his time and he breaks some promises to her, his relationship with Madison is strained. Madison finds comfort with her new friend Fern Hooten (Rita Taggart), Karl's wife, who supports Madison's desires to find her own interests.

During a business event at an aquarium, Madison sees one of her dolphin friends, Salty, in one of the tanks. Madison is upset by this, especially because Salty has a mate out in the wild. Karl is one of the benefactors of the aquarium, so Madison asks him to let Salty go. This causes more friction between Madison and Allen, as Bauer Produce still needs Karl's business and Allen doesn't want to get on Karl's bad side. Madison declares her unhappiness with how Allen is treating her and disregarding her feelings, and leaves off swimming into the ocean.

Allen realizes his mistake and regrets pushing Madison away. When Madison returns to the house, Allen apologizes and the pair reconcile. They sneak into the aquarium, where Dr. Otto Benus (Mark Blankfield) is doing research on Salty, and try to set him free. They are almost caught, but Fern Hooten comes to their aid and helps them get Salty on to a van and out to the ocean.

At the sea front, Salty is released into the ocean and returns home to his mate. Madison and Allen talk about their future and agree to be honest. Allen agrees to return to the sea with Madison if that's what she wants, but he would prefer to stay on land. Madison agrees to stay on land with him, as she has many things she would like to do. The pair embrace, although this resolution entirely contradicts Madison's assertion, made in the film's predecessor, that she would be unable to return if she stayed on land for more than six days. Madison then announces wonderful news — she's pregnant! However, Allen wonders how mermaids have babies. Madison tells him "You'll find out..."

Cooper is an actor who sees life as one big party, while Ed is in advertising and takes life too seriously. When Ed gets stressed over a deadline he has to meet, Cooper works to get his brother hooked up with a girl, thus a long weekend of stress and beautiful women, culminating in Ed's meeting, and making love to, the woman of his dreams- and all without his brother's meddling.

In Scotland, 994 A.D., Castle Wyvern is under attack by Vikings, led by the ruthless Hakon. The resident warriors struggle to repel the attack until the sun sets, where at night, the seemingly lifeless stone gargoyle statues awaken, revealing themselves to be real living gargoyles. Led by Goliath, the powerful gargoyle clan subsequently defends the castle and successfully forces the Vikings to retreat. The human captain of the guard sees them as heroes, but their heroism does nothing to earn appreciation from Princess Katherine, the court wizard Magus, or the other human residents, most of whom still see them as monsters and treat them with prejudice. Goliath's lover and the Captain argue that the gargoyles deserve more praise and dignity, especially since the castle is built on top of the land that originally belonged to the gargoyles, but Goliath adamantly insists that they must endure being misunderstood and protect the castle and all of its residents. The Captain urges Goliath to take his clan away from the castle the following night, but Goliath remains determined to protect the castle.

Meanwhile, three youthful gargoyles and their dog-like gargoyle hound are unfairly harassed by a paranoid mother in the courtyard, and despite their efforts to appease, they are forced to frighten their harassers to defend themselves. Goliath subsequently reprimands them for threatening the humans and orders them to remain in their nesting caverns where the clan's eggs are resting. Goliath and his older gargoyle mentor then proceed to chase after the Vikings but realize they were led into a diversion. Unable to return to the castle in time, the sun rises, forcing them back into stone sleep.

The castle is once again attacked by Hakon and the Vikings. But the captain of the guard, disgusted by the scorn and prejudice of his people against the gargoyles, betrays the castle and Princess Katherine to the Vikings, and the battle is lost during the day. Although he wants to leave the castle to the gargoyles, he fails to convince Hakon that the Gargoyles won't chase after them. He watches as Hakon destroyed the gargoyles while they are helpless in their stone sleep, due to him failing to convince Goliath to leave the castle with his clan the previous night.

That night, Goliath and his mentor return home to find the castle in ruins, the inhabitants gone, and most of his gargoyle brothers and sisters in rubble. Only the three gargoyle youths and their hound have survived due to Goliath previously sending them into the caverns. Enraged at the murder of their siblings and Goliath's mate, the surviving Gargoyles pursue the Vikings.

Far from the castle, the Vikings set up camp with Princess Katherine, Magus, and the other townspeople as their captives. With nowhere else to go to, having betrayed his people, the Captain remains with the Vikings, and Hakon taunts Magus by passively burning pages from his magic book of spells, the Grimorum Arcanorum. When the surviving gargoyles arrive to free the people, Hakon and the Captain flee with Princess Katherine, leaving Magus behind. Goliath pursues them, while the other gargoyles defeat the Vikings. Although the townspeople are saved, Magus is enraged that the gargoyles' arrival may have caused Katherine's death at Hakon's hands, and so he casts a curse on them.

Goliath catches up with Hakon, the Captain, and Katherine, and confronts the Captain for his treachery. When Hakon blames the slaughter of Goliath's siblings on the Captain, the Captain angrily attacks him and they both fall off a cliff to their deaths, while Goliath manages to save and free Katherine. But when he returns, he finds the remaining members of his clan in stone sleep, unable to wake even at night. Realizing that Katherine is alive and well, Magus realizes his grave mistake, and because the pages from the Grimorum Arcanorum needed to break the spell were burned, the gargoyle clan will remain cursed in stone sleep until "the castle rises above the clouds". Grief-stricken and alone, Goliath leaves his clan's eggs in the care of the guilt-ridden Katherine and Magus, and requests Magus to cast his spell on him, so that he can remain with his clan and share their fate.

A thousand years later, in 1994, opportunistic billionaire David Xanatos claims the long abandoned Castle Wyvern and has it reconstructed at the top of his skyscraper in New York City, along with the sleeping gargoyles. Goliath finally awakens and happily reunites with his clan, but they are shocked to awaken in a completely different world in the late-20th century. Xanatos explains that he recovered and translated the Grimorum Arcanorum, and followed its instructions to awaken the gargoyles, written by Magus, and approaches them as a friend. Not long after their awakening, the castle is suddenly attacked by a group of armed commandos from a helicopter. The gargoyles defend the castle against the attackers until they flee.

The fight results in falling debris and damages to the streets below, causing police detective Elisa Maza to climb up to the castle to investigate the battle. She discovers Goliath and the gargoyles, but they manage to hesitantly befriend each other. The gargoyles decide to name themselves after various locations in New York and explore their new surroundings. The elder mentor names himself Hudson, while the young trio name themselves Brooklyn, Lexington, and Broadway, and their hound is named Bronx.

Meanwhile, Xanatos reunites Goliath with his mate, who reveals herself to have survived the massacre of their clan and survived until the modern time, and the two lovers happily reunite. Having earned their trust, Xanatos convinces the clan to help steal back important data discs that were supposedly stolen from him during the commando attack.

After they successfully return from their mission, Elisa goes to speak with Goliath in private about the theft. They are suddenly attacked by the same commandos from before but manage to survive the attack through the night, and Elisa defends the sleeping Goliath during the day. Elisa investigates the theft and reveals to Goliath that the commandos were employed by Xanatos, and that Xanatos has been manipulating Goliath.

No longer needing the gargoyles, Xanatos sets his clan of robotic steel gargoyles to destroy them, but the real gargoyles manage to fight back and destroy the unintelligent robots. Goliath's lover reveals that her name is Demona, and that she is conspiring with Xanatos. She also reveals that a thousand years ago, before their clan was massacred by the Vikings, she conspired with the Captain of the guard to betray Princess Katherine and the townspeople so that the gargoyles could have the castle all to themselves, as the castle was built on their land and was rightfully theirs to begin with. But after many betrayals and deaths of their kind, she now hates all of humanity and considers the human race as their enemies. Goliath and the rest of the clan reject her desire to fight against the human race, and so she decides that Goliath is also her enemy and decides to kill him. As Demona is about to shoot Goliath, Elisa arrives just in time to intervene and tackles Demona, causing her to accidentally fire her laser weapon at the castle, destroying a portion of it. Demona and Elisa fall from the collapsing castle ledge, but Goliath catches and saves Elisa, while Demona continues to fall until she disappears.

Enraged at this loss, Goliath attempts to kill Xanatos until Elisa convinces him not to, claiming that if he does, he would be no morally better than Demona. Xanatos is arrested for possession of stolen property and the few surviving gargoyles now accept their new lives in their new home in New York, with Elisa now their friend and confidante.

At a church in Guatemala, a man and a boy, Ben Mears and Mark Petrie, are filling small bottles with holy water. When one of the bottles begins to emit an eerie supernatural glow, Mears tells Mark that "they've found us again." Knowing an evil presence is nearby, they decide to stay to fight it.

Two years earlier, Mears, a successful author, returns after a long absence to his small hometown of Salem's Lot, Maine. Mears intends to write a book about the Marsten House, an old, ominous property on a hilltop which has a reputation for being haunted. Attempting to rent it, Mears finds that it has already been purchased by another new arrival in town, the mysterious Richard Straker, who is in the process of opening an antique shop with his oft-mentioned but never present business partner, Kurt Barlow. Instead, Mears moves into a boarding house in town run by Eva Miller and develops a romantic relationship with a local woman, Susan Norton. He befriends Susan's father, Dr. Bill Norton, and reconnects with his kindly former school teacher, Jason Burke. Mears tells Burke that he feels the Marsten House is somehow inherently evil, recalling that its original owner, Hubie Marsten – implied to have been a child molester – committed suicide there. Mears further recalls a traumatic childhood incident in which he broke into the house on a dare and saw Hubie's ghost.

After a large crate is delivered to the Marsten House one night, townspeople begin to disappear or die under strange circumstances. Mears and Straker are the main suspects as they are both new in town, but it eventually becomes clear that the crate contained Straker's business partner, Kurt Barlow — an ancient vampire who has come to Salem's Lot after sending Straker to make way for his arrival. Straker kidnaps a young boy, Ralphie Glick, as an offering to Barlow, while Barlow himself kills local realtor Larry Crockett. The Glick boy then returns as a vampire to claim his brother, Danny. After his funeral, the undead Danny infects a gravedigger, Mike Ryerson, and attempts to prey on one of his schoolfriends, Mark Petrie. However, Mark is a horror film buff and manages to repel Danny with a cross.

As the vampirism spreads, Mears, Burke, and Dr. Norton gradually realize what is happening to the town and attempt to stop it. Mears is attacked by Ralph and Danny's presumed-dead mother Marjorie Glick after she revives on a mortician's table, but Mears defends himself using a makeshift cross. Mark's parents are both killed by Barlow, though Mark escapes with the assistance of a local priest. Burke, however, suffers a severe heart attack following an encounter with the newly vampirized Ryerson.

Seeking revenge for his parents' deaths, Mark breaks into the Marsten House, and a concerned Susan follows him inside; both are soon captured by Straker. Later, Mears and Dr. Norton enter the house, too, where Straker kills Norton by impaling him on a pair of antlers before he himself is fatally shot by Mears. Afterwards, Mears and the freed Mark find Barlow's coffin in the cellar and destroy him by driving a stake through his heart. Fleeing the other vampires in the house (the infected townsfolk), the two set fire to the Marsten property as they leave, though Susan is nowhere to be found. While the house burns, the wind carries the fire towards the town itself. As he and Mark drive away from Salem's Lot, Mears comments that the fire will drive all the vampires from their hiding places and purify the town from the evil that has engulfed it.

The story returns to Mears and Mark at the church in Guatemala two years later. It becomes clear that they are on the run from the surviving Salem's Lot vampires, and that their bottles of holy water glow whenever a vampire is nearby. Realising that they have been tracked down yet again, Mears and Mark return to their lodgings to collect their belongings. Once there, Mears finds Susan lying in his bed. Now a vampire, she prepares to bite him as he leans down to kiss her, but instead Mears drives a stake through her heart and destroys her. A grief-stricken Mears then leaves with Mark, knowing that the vampires will continue to pursue them.

Feeling writing as a terribly painful task, the narrator re-tells the story of his 1970 summer. He was a student at a university in Tokyo then, and returned to his seaside hometown in Kobe for summer vacation. That spring, a girl he dated at the university committed suicide. During the summer vacation, he frequented J's bar with his friend "Rat" and spent much time drinking beer obsessively. One day, he came across a girl lying on the floor in the washroom of the bar and carried her home. The girl had no left little finger. Later, he ran into the girl by chance in the record store where she worked. After that, she started calling him and they hung out a few times. Meanwhile, Rat was clearly troubled about some woman but he did not disclose the details. One day, the girl without a little finger met the narrator at a restaurant near the harbor. They took a walk in the dusk along the warehouse street. She told him, "When I sit there alone, I can hear a lot of people coming to talk to me..." That night, at her apartment, she revealed she just had an abortion. When he came back in the winter, the girl had left the record store and her apartment. The narrator is married now and living in Tokyo. Rat is still writing novels and sends his manuscripts to the narrator every Christmas.

A Czech agricultural student, Šimon Plánička, arrives at the small South Bohemian town of Hoštice, and joins the local JZD (agricultural co-op) with the intention of trying out his experiment regarding the "Milk yield of cows in regards to a cultured environment". He runs into difficulty with the directorship of the JZD, but he finds them eager to help once they hear he's the son of the local agricultural commissioner, as his last name is also Plánička. Blažena Škopková is given the task of finding out how things are looking. However everything is complicated by the jealousy of Blažena's boyfriend Venca.

Tom Ripley is involved in an art forgery scheme in Berlin, in partnership with British gangster Reeves. Upon finding out that Reeves has attempted to cheat him, Ripley forces Reeves' customer at gunpoint to give him the money intended for the forgeries, and kills the man’s bodyguard. He also steals back the artwork for himself, and curtly tells Reeves that their partnership is over.

Three years later, Ripley is living in a lush villa in Veneto with his wife Luisa, a harpsichordist. Invited by a neighbour to a party, Ripley overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and alluding to his shady reputation. Ripley briefly confronts him, then sullenly leaves the party.

Reeves resurfaces, much to Ripley's annoyance, asking him to eliminate a rival mobster. Ripley recommends Trevanny for the job as revenge for the slight. Believing Trevanny, a law-abiding art framer who is dying of leukemia, to be an assassin, Reeves offers him the job for a large fee. A bewildered Trevanny refuses, but eventually agrees to make sure that his wife and son are provided for after his death. Trevanny travels to Berlin under the pretense of seeing a leukemia specialist, and kills the mobster at a museum. He refuses Reeves' offer of even more money to kill another mobster, this time on a train, but relents after Reeves threatens his family.

Trevanny freezes up on the train and contemplates suicide. Ripley intervenes and the two dispatch the target and his two bodyguards in the train's toilet. Together they return home, where Trevanny vainly attempts to persuade his wife Sarah that he won the money playing roulette.

Reeves ignores Ripley's warnings to keep a low profile, fearing that the Mafia will seek reprisal for the killing and deduce who was involved. The mobsters' associates come to Italy seeking revenge, killing Reeves and leaving his body in the boot of their car. They storm Ripley's villa, but Ripley has boobytrapped his home. With Trevanny's help, Ripley kills them all.

Ripley leaves Trevanny under the assumption that all the killers have been dispatched. However, Trevanny returns home to find two surviving gangsters holding Sarah captive. Ripley spots the killers' car outside in the bushes and doubles back to Trevanny's in time to save his wife. A wounded assassin fires at Ripley, but Trevanny sacrifices himself by jumping in front of the bullet. Puzzled by Trevanny's selflessness, Ripley tries to give Sarah her husband's share of the blood money, but she spits in his face. When he leaves Sarah the packet of money is still on the floor. That night, Ripley attends Luisa's concert as if nothing has happened, but smiles briefly at the memory of Trevanny's sacrifice.

Newspaper reporter Pete (Bing Crosby) works in a Paris orphanage. His charming way with children and music enables him to find homes for even the most troubled kids. One afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey (Alan Reed and Minna Gombell), an American couple, come to the orphanage to adopt Bobby, a boy they saw in one of the ads Pete ran in his newspaper. Bobby misbehaves, but when Pete discovers that Mr. Godfrey plays for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he quickly produces a young blind opera wunderkind, Theresa (Anna Maria Alberghetti), who sings her way into the Godfreys' hearts.

Later that night, Pete dreams that the fiancée he left behind in America, Emmadel (Jane Wyman) has visited. She appears in a hologram atop his record player, scolding him for leaving her at the altar and talks about the children they might have had. Filled with regret, Pete arranges to adopt both Bobby and his little sister Suzi and bring them to Boston, where he'll marry Emmadel. American authorities inform him that he must marry within five days or the adoption will be void.

After delays in obtaining the children's birth certificates, they and Pete finally fly to Boston, and go to Emmadel's house. While she bonds with Bobby and Suzi, Pete discovers that Emmadel is engaged to an aristocratic man, Wilbur Stanley, whose office she works in. She had gotten tired of waiting for Pete's arrival home. The kids stay with her loud parents (drunken father James Barton, a fisherman, and disapproving mother Connie Gilchrist). Pete tries everything to win Emmadel back. She helps him secure a lease on a new house via her fiancé's company. However, when Pete and the children arrive at the house in the rain, they discover that another couple (the McGonigles) also have a lease for the property. Emmadel's fiancé Wilbur shows up to settle the matter. Wilbur offers Pete a ride to another house - but Pete talks him into letting them stay at the Stanley family's gatehouse. They agree to a friendly competition for Emmadel's heart during the few days leading up to the wedding.

Pete and the children settle into the Stanleys' lavish gatehouse, where Emmadel's parents are also staying. Emmadel meets Wilbur's amiable elderly relatives, who present her with $500,000 as a wedding gift. Her parents embarrass her by running screaming through the garden. Emma discovers Pete's presence and visits the gatehouse to have it out with him. After she pulls Suzi's loose tooth, Pete pretends to be in love with Winnifred, Wilbur's fourth cousin twice-removed, and laughs when Emmadel pratfalls on her huge party dress.

Pete reveals his plan to Winnifred Stanley. He discovers that she has long been in love with her cousin Wilbur, but feels too socially awkward to pursue him. In a bit of ''Pygmalion'', Pete teaches Winnifred to feel comfortable with herself. Winnifred's newfound confidence bubbles over at the wedding rehearsal. She and Emmadel erupt in a brawl on the front lawn. Winnifred concedes the fight, and Emmadel declares that she's proud to be a fisherman's daughter.

The wedding day arrives. News reporters line the outdoor chapel, proclaiming this the Cinderella story of the decade. As he escorts Emma down the aisle, Pa Jones tells her that Pete kidnapped the children and ran so they wouldn't be sent back to France. Emmadel begins to have second thoughts. Pete shows up at precisely the wrong moment, handcuffed to a policeman, with both crying kids in tow. Although Wilbur offers to marry Emma and adopt the children, Bobby and Suzi cling sobbing to Pete. On national television, Wilbur abandons his own wedding and forces a reluctant Emma and a protesting (but secretly thrilled) Pete to marry. Pete, Emmadel, Bobby, Suzi, Ma and Pa Jones all ride off for their honeymoon together.

A Belgian criminal wanted all over Europe for his crimes, is in the custody of the Police Department of Marseille to be watched for a few hours before transfer to a prison in the Congo. Unfortunately, Émilien (Frédéric Diefenthal) is tricked by the villain and convinced to let the prisoner go.

After these events, he is fired, but luckily for him, his friend Daniel (Samy Naceri) helps him one more time by telling him the location where the criminal is located, having been the taxi driver who drove him after he left the police station, not knowing he was a criminal. With Daniel's skills and his new Peugeot 407, Émillen seeks to capture the criminal to restore his job back.

On June 27, 1976, four terrorists belonging to a splinter group of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine under the orders of Wadie Haddad boarded and hijacked an Air France Airbus A300 in Athens, Greece.

With the permission of President Idi Amin (Julius Harris), the terrorists divert the airliner and its hostages to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. After identifying Israeli passengers, the non-Jewish passengers are freed while a series of demands are made, including the release of 40 Palestinian militants held in Israel, in exchange for the hostages.

The Cabinet of Israel, led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Anthony Hopkins), unwilling to give in to terrorist demands, plans a top-secret military raid. This commando operation, military code name: "Operation Thunderbolt", will be carried out over from home and will take place on the Jewish Sabbath.

While still negotiating with the terrorists, who now numbered seven individuals, the Israeli military prepared two Lockheed C-130 Hercules transports for the raid. The transports refuelled in Kenya before landing at Entebbe Airport under the cover of darkness. The commandos led by Brigadier General Dan Shomron (Harris Yulin) had to contend with a large armed Ugandan military detachment and used a ruse to overcome the defenses. A black Mercedes limousine had been carried on board and was used to fool sentries that it was the official car which President Amin used on an impromptu visit to the airport.

Nearly complete surprise was achieved but a firefight resulted, ending with all seven terrorists and 45 Ugandan soldiers killed. The hostages were gathered together and most were quickly put on the idling C-130 aircraft. During the raid, one commando (the breach unit commander Yonatan Netanyahu (Richard Dreyfuss), brother of future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), and three of the hostages died.

With 102 hostages aboard and on their way to freedom, a group of Israeli commandos remained behind to destroy the Ugandan Air Force MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters to prevent a retaliation. All the survivors of the attack force then joined in flying back to Israel via Nairobi and Sharm El Sheikh.

On June 27, 1976, four terrorists belonging to a splinter group of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine under the orders of Wadie Haddad boarded and hijacked Flight 139, an Air France Airbus A300 in Athens, Greece. Two of the terrorists are West Germans named Wilfried Boese and Halima, and the other two are Palestinians.

After landing to refuel in Libya, the four hijackers force the airliner to take off once again. With President Idi Amin's permission, the terrorists divert the airliner and its hostages to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The hijackers are joined at Entebbe by more Palestinian militants. After identifying Israeli passengers, the non-Jewish passengers are freed while a series of demands are made, including the release of 40 Palestinian militants held in Israel, in exchange for the hostages.

The Cabinet of Israel, unwilling to give in to terrorist demands, is faced with difficult decisions as their deliberations lead to a top-secret military raid. This commando operation, "Operation Thunderbolt", will be carried out over from home and will take place on the Jewish Sabbath.

While still negotiating with the terrorists, who now numbered seven individuals, the Israeli military prepared a group of Lockheed C-130 Hercules transports for the raid. The transports landed at Entebbe Airport under the cover of darkness. The commandos led by Brigadier General Dan Shomron had to contend with a large armed Ugandan military detachment and used a ruse to overcome the defenses. A black Mercedes limousine had been carried on board and was used to fool sentries that it was the official car that President Amin used on an impromptu visit to the airport.

Nearly complete surprise was achieved but a firefight resulted, ending with all seven terrorists and 45 Ugandan soldiers killed. The hostages were gathered together and most were quickly put on the idling C-130 aircraft. During the raid, one commando (the breach unit commander Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), and three of the hostages, died.

With 102 hostages aboard and on their way to freedom, a group of Israeli commandos remained behind to destroy the Ugandan Air Force MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters to prevent a retaliation. All the survivors of the attack force then joined in flying to Nairobi for refueling and then back to Israel via Sharm El Sheikh.

A young traveler stops for the night with a family that lives in a "notch" next to a mountain. They make friendly conversation, interrupted once by the sound of a wagon carrying other travelers, and then by the sound of rocks falling from the slope. The father reassures the visitor that rockfalls happen regularly without causing harm, but that the family has a "safe place" to go in the event of a serious collapse.

The group carries on with their friendly conversation. The visitor acknowledges that he is young and has no accomplishments of note, but hopes he will have "achieved my destiny" before he dies and then "I shall have built my monument!" The father expresses the wish for a more humble legacy.

Suddenly, they hear the sound of a much larger avalanche. They scream in fear of "The Slide!" and bolt outside for their safe place. But they are all caught up in the rock slide and killed, while the house is completely undamaged. Their bodies are swept away and never found. Locals mourn the loss of the family but are unaware of their ambitious guest.

Two bugs, the Scottish-accented Erky, and his friend, the cowardly and impressionable Perky, live an idyllic life on a downtown hot dog stand, a cornucopia of crumbs, relish and wieners. They live the high life until one day they are swept away in a take-out bag and end up in a sterile suburban kitchen with no food in sight. The two bickering, dim-witted and lazy bugs are forced to survive in the new and scary "Land of Kitchen". Every day, they are obsessed with finding food, and eventually finding their way home to "Hot Dog Stand". Their quests are almost always befouled by 'Mad' Margaret, the self-appointed ruler of Kitchen, and her 'sidekick' Cecil.

Matt Sullivan (Patrick Muldoon) is haunted to the point of mental instability by his guilt over the death of a girl named Molly in a car accident he caused years ago. Driving drunk after an argument with his girlfriend, he was distracted by the car radio and fatally struck the girl as she crossed the road.

Years later, Matt goes away for weekend with his new girlfriend Dawn (Keegan Connor Tracy) to the Blackwoods of Colorado. During a stopover in a small town Matt and Dawn have lunch at a local diner, where he notices several of the locals staring oddly at the two of them. On the road, Matt is pulled over by Sheriff Harding (Michael Paré), who asks Matt who he is and what he is doing passing through the town. After Matt explains about his private getaway, Sheriff Harding lets him go.

Matt checks into a local motel where he interacts with the debauched motel clerk and owner Greg (Clint Howard), who tries to overcharge him for his room for the night. Later, after a wild session of lovemaking, Dawn goes for a walk. While she is away a strange man with an axe comes into the motel room and attacks Matt, who escapes and calls the police. Sheriff Harding shows up and, after finding no one around, openly suspects Matt of having ulterior motives for visiting the Blackwoods, but without any hard evidence he cannot arrest him. Matt phones his friend Jim, telling him of Dawn's disappearance and asking for help before setting out to look for her.

In the woods, Matt is attacked and captured by a rural family, the Franklins, who restrain him and put on a mock trial to try him for the death of the young girl he killed years prior. Dawn emerges and reveals that she is the twin sister of Molly, and that she lured him here for revenge. Matt is found guilty by the Franklins, and is sentenced to be turned loose in the forest for the family to hunt down; he flees into the woods, his sanity weakening further as he goes.

Matt manages to ambush and kill two of the family members, Jack and John, pursuing him through the woods. Jim appears, having tracked Matt down, and tries to talk to his friend when Matt unexpectedly attacks and kills him, believing that he too is in league with the Franklin family. It is revealed that Dawn and the Franklins never existed, and that Matt's every interaction with them had been part of a delusion his guilt-ridden mind created to deal with the strain of his past.

Sheriff Harding follows some clues from Matt into the woods and to the old Franklin house, which is abandoned and in disrepair (confirming that Matt's "trial" was indeed a hallucination). The sheriff finds Jim's dead body and then chases after Matt. The chase ends with Matt running blindly into traffic and being killed by a speeding truck.

The final scene shows Sheriff Harding telling his story to the waitress at the local diner, telling how Matt's mental instability led to him dreaming up this waking nightmare about Dawn and the Franklins.

The film depicts a young woman (Swanson) given by a mystic an occasional glimpse into her future, notably her future with different men.

Job and his wife are sitting out under a palm tree when a tree, called the Burning Bush or The Christmas Tree, enlightens itself. The couple explain that this tree rustling is God, and he has come to talk to them. It ends up actually being God, and Job goes over and talks to him. God sets up his throne ("a plywood flat, prefabricated" that God pulls upright on its hinges to support him) and talks to Job about his condition (because he was ill). God then says "You are the Emancipator of your God, and as such I promote you a saint". Job is grateful of this title, and then his wife comes along, and tells God about her punishment when she was accused of witchcraft. God apologizes for his lack of action, explaining "That is not Of record in my Note Book."

The gendarmes of St. Tropez are invited to New York City to a law enforcement conference. They are supposed to travel alone without spouses or children but Cruchot's daughter Nicole wants to go to New York as it may be her only chance. Cruchot forbids her to go because disobeying an order may hurt his career. As Cruchot travels to Le Havre by plane and train, Nicole gets a ride from her friend and sneaks on board SS ''France'' and travels to America as a stowaway. During the journey Cruchot sees her hiding among the lifeboats but his captain convinces him that he is imagining things.

When the ship arrives at New York, Nicole is caught by an immigrations officer. She has no passport, visa or money so the immigrations officer decides to deliver her to the French embassy. Nicole is saved by a newspaper reporter who plans on running a cycle of romantic articles about a French orphan girl and her dreams. He houses her in a YWCA hotel and takes her to a live TV show where she sings live. During her stay she meets an Italian gendarme who already tried to win her over while on the ship. The Italian takes her to his relatives soon after Cruchot who has seen her performance on TV chases her out of the YWCA hotel and gets arrested.

Cruchot is released with a warning and a suggestion to visit a psychiatrist. After a Freudian episode with a psychiatrist Cruchot is relieved of his perceived visions. The captain sends him to find a real good cut of beef in order to make a proper French meal. Fumbling as usual, during a ''West Side Story'' parody scene he manages to help capture a wanted criminal and is honoured by a newspaper article the following day. While reading the article he notices a photograph of Nicole in an article about her romantic involvement with the Italian gendarme. He forces the Italian to reveal Nicole's whereabouts and proceeds to find her in the deli belonging to the Italian gendarme's family. He manages to take her away but they are both chased by the Sicilians who believe that Nicole was kidnapped. Cruchot and Nicole manage to escape by hiding in Chinatown and dressing as local Chinese couple.

Meanwhile, the Italian gendarme solicits the help of the NYPD and other gendarmes present at the congress to help him find his lost love. Cruchot transports Nicole to the airport by taxi in a luggage chest. He fails to arrive because of a small traffic incident and is forced to release Nicole from her confinement. Through a series of incidents Cruchot and Nicole manage to evade the NYPD and Cruchot's captain at a construction site and return to their abandoned taxi, which takes them to the airport.

At the airport Cruchot agrees to meet Nicole in the bar. When he arrives there she meets him dressed as an Air France flight attendant. She places him before a choice: either take the plane she will be flying on, thus risking discovery by the captain or make sure that they are late for their flight. Cruchot sabotages the gendarme's luggage making them late for the flight, while the captain sees a girl resembling Nicole fumbling with the airplane door. Cruchot manages to convince him that he is imagining things.

The movie cuts to Saint Tropez where the gendarmes are welcomed by the townsfolk, their wives and Nicole. The movie ends with the captain discovering that Nicole is wearing a dress that Cruchot bought for her in America. He confronts Cruchot with his insubordination.

Changes are coming for the Gendarmerie Brigade of Saint Tropez. The gendarmes are forced into retirement to make way for a younger breed. Even so, when they learn that one of them has had an accident and has become amnesiac, they reunite to help him get his memory back. Along the way, they have to stop juvenile delinquents to put a nuclear warhead on a rocket said youths built, while being pursued by their younger colleagues.

As described in a film magazine, Jimmy Dent (Reid), son of John Dent (Roberts) the maker of the reliable but plain Dent automobiles, is dismissed from the firm after he refuses to drive a Dent. He goes west with the Tyler family, owners of a rival automobile firm, in one of their expensive high speed cars. The elder Dent attempts to break the cross-country record held by a Tyler automobile with a Dent vehicle, but Tyler's men waylay his drivers. Jimmy offers a cash prize for a free-for-all cross-country race, and drives the Dent when his father's driver betrays him. He passes the slate of drivers when rain in the mountains ties them up and wins the race driving the trusty Dent. Jimmy ends up marrying the elder Dent's effective stenographer Louise Fowler (MacLaren), who dons a mechanic's overalls to help in the big finish.

Ethel McFarland (Davenport) presents her attorney husband, Alan (Kirkwood), with the case of a dope addict named Jimmy Brown (Hackathorne). With the help of Alan's impassioned defense, Jimmy gets acquitted.

Alan feels the pressures of his job and is introduced to a doctor at his club. When he becomes addicted, he is blackmailed by his peddlers to represent their friends in court. Jimmy, now off the smack and a taxi driver, hears of these goings-on. When he discovers that his passenger is the leader of the dope ring, he resolves to aid the war on narcotics by crashing the vehicle head-on into an oncoming train, killing them both. Alan gets treated for his addiction and begins to fight the pushers in court, all the while pushing for stronger laws against addictive substances.

At the film's close, Davenport addresses the audience directly, imploring them to support her in her crusade to wipe out the menace of narcotics.

1922, somewhere in Australia. An Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman, and three white men (The Fanatic, The Follower and The Veteran) are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced indigenous man (The Tracker).

As they travel through the rugged Australian outback, each suffers under the stern hand The Fanatic, who will stop at nothing to bring the accused to justice, even if that means sacrificing the others to reach the goal.

Meanwhile, the motives of the tracker remain elusive, and despite their relentless pursuit the men always seem to be a half-day behind their quarry.

After the death of one of the men, and a surprise mutiny, what endgame awaits for the group, and the enigmatic Tracker to which they have entrusted their survival.

Ryan Dunne is a local baseball player who dreams of playing in the Major Leagues. He helps his dad with his landscaping business and takes care of Veteran's Field, where his team, the Chatham A's play.

Ryan, in his dedication to making the pros, has sworn off girls and drinking to avoid distractions. This changes when he sees Tenley Parrish, as he and his father are mowing the Parrish family's lawn.

The next day, the A's have their first game of the season where rival Van Leemer shines pitching a shut-out, while Ryan is told to walk the stands for donations. That evening Ryan and Tenley have their first kiss.

The next night Ryan is pitching in his first game of the season. The game goes well for the A's until the last inning when he gives up a grand slam, allowing the other team to win the game. He returns home to find his dad drunk and upset about the loss.

Later, Ryan visits Tenley, where he confides about his rocky relationship with his father and concerns about failing as a baseball player. The next night, they take an evening swim in her pool in the rain, falling in love, before being chased off by her dad.

Ryan is distracted by Tenley and feels a lot of pressure from scouts, family, the Parrish family, and friends. He is told that he's starting for an upcoming big game, where Ryan starts well, but comes apart later on. The loss causes him to be demoted to the bullpen in a relief position. Despite the bad outing, Hugh Alexander, a scout for the Philadelphia Phillies in attendance, shows interest in Ryan.

Eric Van Leemer and Dale Robin are kicked off the team not only for their bad behavior, but also for accidentally burning down a press box, so Ryan is designated to start the final game, as he has the freshest arm and the most rest.

Tenley tells Ryan that she's leaving for San Francisco for a job the following night, also the night of the final game. She tells him to let himself be great, before tearfully hugging him goodbye.

Inspired by Tenley's words of encouragement, Ryan pitches one of the best performances ever seen in the Cape League, dominating the game with a no-hitter. His friends, dad and brother, and several major league scouts, including Alexander, are in attendance. Late in the game, he notices that Tenley has stopped by on her way to the airport to watch him. He proceeds to strike out the current batter, marking his eleventh strike-out of the game, and looks back to see that Tenley has gone.

Ryan rushes to the airport where he catches Tenley before she boards her plane. They both profess their love for each other and she agrees to forgo her job in San Francisco and stay. Ryan's dad and brother soon arrive with the scout Alexander, to tell him that his team won the game with a combined no-hitter. Alexander offers Ryan a contract with the Phillies that will start him out at their minor league affiliate, which he happily accepts.

Later, everyone is gathered to watch Ryan in his Major League debut as a relief pitcher for the Phillies. He delivers his first pitch to Ken Griffey Jr., who launches it into the stands for a home run.

The Stooges are dressed in yellowface as Japanese soldiers for a photo shoot; their boss (John Tyrrell) tells them to go on a lunch break but they have to keep their costumes on to finish the photo shoot quickly.

Meanwhile, in the restaurant the Stooges are about to go to, the manager reads a headline in the newspaper that states a Japanese submarine was destroyed offshore and three Japanese soldiers had escaped. When the Stooges arrive, the owner thinks they are the Japanese and attacks the Stooges, but they manage to escape. When they escape into the alley, they accidentally activate a hidden door. When they get inside, they meet a Nazi spy named Hugo (Vernon Dent) who mistakes them for the three Japanese, Naki (Larry), Saki (Moe), and Waki (Curly), that escaped. Just as Hugo is about to introduce them to some ladies, Curly accidentally calls them "dames" which makes Hugo realize that they are not the Japanese, but he plays along anyway.

In order to prove themselves, the Stooges have to teach the ladies jujitsu and do acrobatic tricks. When the real Japanese arrive, the Stooges fight them, but they keep turning the lights on and off, leading them to fight the wrong persons. At the end, the Stooges come out victorious.

Takaya Ougi, a high school student, wants nothing more than to protect his best friend Yuzuru Narita and live a normal life. That is, until Nobutsuna Naoe, an intense and charismatic man, informs Takaya that he is in fact the reincarnation of Lord Kagetora, the adopted son of a noble samurai lord, Kenshin Uesugi. Naoe, himself a "possessor," or a soul reborn through time, reawakens Takaya's abilities to exorcise evil spirits and fight the Feudal Underworld, a collection of restless warrior spirits bent on modern-day conquest. While most possessors remember their former lives before being reincarnated, Takaya is one of the few who doesn't, and is often hostile towards any effort for the complete recovery of his memory. As the plot unfolds, the complex history of the characters and their past suggests why this is so, and the true nature of the tempestuous and somewhat ambiguous relationship between the two leads provides the backdrop for a melodrama that spans several generations of Japanese history. As they ascend to the living world to renew their ancient war, Naoe, Takaya, and two other possessors gear up to prevent that from happening. The series is set in Matsumoto, a large city in Nagano.

OVA

The OVA ''Rebels of the River Edge'' (2003) has animated the book with same title. The OVA resumes the plot of the anime television series, yet incorporates several new developments, among them the question of unswerving loyalty and personal honor. Takaya is sent to Kyoto to investigate the re-awakening of the Ikko sect and Murashige Araki, a one time member of the Ikkō sect who has since deserted the clan. With the help of his vassal and fellow possessor Haruie, the two are successful in tracking him down, only to discover that Murashige is after a 400-year-old mandala (a Buddhist ritualistic artifact and meditative aid) made of the hair of the deceased Araki clansmen. Unfortunately, by the time they meet up with Murashige, Haruie recognizes him as Shintarou, her former lover in a past life. Whether it's true or not, and despite the confusing emotional complication of this development, Takaya orders Haruie to eliminate Murashige once he becomes a true threat to the balance of power. Meanwhile, Takaya finally reunites with Naoe after a prolonged period of estrangement. Unresolved sexual and psychological tension dominates their initial exchange, and it's uncertain whether these two powerful possessors will resolve their differences and work together against this latest threat.

Phil, James, George, and Tom meet 20 years after their championship high school game at a special reunion at their high school. Afterwards, they decide to visit the home of their old coach. While at first it seems they are all having a few harmless drinks, the night soon takes a violent turn as several things are realized; Phil is having an affair with George's wife, George (who is running for mayor) is firing James, who is his campaign chairman, and Tom has become a reeling drunk.

With the help of their old Coach, the men try to put their lives back together—but the Coach proves to be nothing they believed him to have been, and worse than no help; in fact, his involvement with each of the men's lives proves to have done them all much more harm than good. This is particularly glaring because of the refusal of the star player, who still hates the Coach after all these years, to attend the reunion.

Ebenezer Scrooge is the most greedy, corrupt and mean-spirited crook in the old West and he sees no value in "Holiday Humbug." But when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come open his eyes, Scrooge discovers that love and friendships are the greatest wealth of all.

After Zia takes his own life, he finds himself in an afterlife limbo much the same as life, but slightly worse. The color is dim, there are no stars, and no one can smile. This strange realm is populated by people who have died by suicide, such as Eugene, a Russian musician who lives with his mother, father, and brother – all suicide victims. Together they waste most of their afterlives in bars, until Zia learns from a friend, Brian, that his ex-girlfriend, Desiree, took her own life shortly after Zia's death. He and Eugene take to the road to find her in Eugene's rundown car. Early on, it is revealed that Eugene's car has two idiosyncrasies, a black hole underneath the passenger seat where items that are dropped disappear forever, and broken headlights that cannot be fixed by even the most adept mechanics. On their trip, they pick up a hitchhiker, Mikal, who insists she has arrived by mistake, and is seeking the "people in charge" (a.k.a. the PIC) in order to be sent back.

After a few adventures across the countryside, as the trio journey along a desolate highway, Mikal pushes a button, miraculously activating the broken headlights on Eugene's car. Shortly thereafter, they come upon a man lying in the middle of the dark highway, forcing them to veer off the road in order to avoid hitting him and wrecking the car in the process.

They discover the man, Kneller, an eccentric commune leader, had fallen asleep while looking for his dog. Kneller invites them back to his camp, where they quickly discover that minor "miracles" occur, as long as the campers remain apathetic about the result. The group stays with the camp longer than intended, and Zia begins to obsess over the miracles and his inability to perform them. When contrasting this to Mikal's obsession with the people in charge, she reveals that her death was an accidental overdose. Eugene meets a young woman, Nanuk, whom he romances. Just as Mikal and Zia discuss their plans to leave Kneller's camp, another camper, Yan, emerges from the woods with news that Kneller's dog has been abducted by a cult leader called "Messiah King". Kneller, Zia, Mikal, and Yan set off in search of King and Kneller's dog.

The group soon find themselves lost and decide to make camp for the night. Unable to sleep, Mikal and Zia discover a nearby ocean shore, where they kiss and spend the night together. In the morning, Kneller discovers them lying among a seashore of used condoms and hypodermic needles. The group eventually reaches King's camp, where they discover that King is readying himself for a "real" miracle – to separate his soul from his body. As Kneller confronts King, Zia discovers that Desiree is a devout cult follower, having taken her own life for the purpose of following King into the afterlife.

As King is about to perform public, ritual suicide, Kneller reveals himself to be an undercover agent for the people in charge. King and Desiree are taken away, while Mikal leaves with them, promising Zia that she'll return. As Zia waits, Eugene and Nanuk arrive, explaining that Mikal has been returned to life and Kneller's camp has been shut down. They depart together on a train, giving Eugene's car to Zia. After finally performing a miracle – creating a star in the sky with a lit match next to one that Mikal had created earlier – Zia decides to take the car and wander. While he is turning over the cassette tape to place in the stereo it accidentally falls into the passenger side feet area. He reaches for it and enters the black hole under the car seat.

In a large warehouse filled with halls of boxes, Kneller picks up Zia's file from a box, places it into his inside breast pocket, and comments on how fortunate it is to know people in high places. Zia wakes up in a hospital bed. He turns his head, seeing his parents outside talking to doctors. When he looks at the person in the bed next to his, he sees Mikal. Both look at each other and smile.

The film starts out with the quote "Nothing can ever be truly, fully understood. Not even the most simple idea. Not even this."

Bickford Shmeckler is a lonely college student who keeps a journal known as "The Book" of his philosophical ideas and theories. One night during a loud toga party, his book is stolen by the inebriated and beautiful Sarah Witt, who briefly meets Bickford and is shown to be a kleptomaniac. Sarah becomes enamored with the writings, and experiences what she calls "braingasms". After showing The Book to her boyfriend Trent, she rants about how she would love to meet the author (and have sex with him). Later that night, Bickford discovers that the book is missing and begins to panic.

By interrogating his roommates, Bickford quickly finds and meets Sarah while she is working at the school's art studio. She kisses him, and explains that his work inspired her to paint. They go to Trent's dorm and discover that he threw the book out over his jealously that Sarah was so taken with Bickford's work. By this time, a delusional homeless man nicknamed "Space Man" has found the book, and becomes convinced that Bickford can free the "extra-dimensionals" living in his head. Space Man extorts Bickford, but after making no progress, a despondent Schmeckler gives up. Meanwhile, the owners of a comic book store read the book and fall in love with it, reprinting it, distributing free copies of it, and going as far as selling related merchandise. Sarah discovers this, and still feeling guilty, tells Bickford. They learn of the free distribution of his book, and Bickford confronts the comic store owners. Frustrated that their newfound idol does not care about The Book's newfound popularity, they angrily give it back.

Despite having it once more, however, Bickford still fails to find himself at ease. One of his college professors, who has read the Book, sets Bickford up with a publisher without his consent, and it is heavily implied she demands he sleep with her as a favor. Under increasing pressure, Bickford confides in Sarah that he began writing the book after his mother died in a car accident while he was at the wheel; his father had checked him into a mental institution to treat his resulting mental breakdowns, and he began to record his thoughts in a notebook the doctors provided.

An insult from Sarah prompts Bickford to realize that nothing in life can ever be truly understood, and he includes a disclaimer in The Book warning readers to take the time to have fun in life's fleeting chaos. Bickford returns the book to the comic store owners and grants them permission to reprint and give it away, under the conditions that it be free and no merchandise be created. He then begins a romantic relationship with Sarah, experiences sex for the first time, and is inspired to write a new poem.

A meteor shower blinds most people in the world and at the same time spreads triffid plant spores which quickly become animated. Bill Masen, a merchant navy officer who has been lying in hospital overnight with his eyes bandaged, is unaffected and leaves the next day. While at a railway station, he comes across an orphaned schoolgirl named Susan who, having spent the night in the luggage van, is unaffected too. He helps her escape the groping crowds and they commandeer an abandoned car in order to reach his ship. On their way the car gets stuck in mud and while they look for stones to gain traction a mobile triffid ambushes them and they barely escape.

Meanwhile, scientist Tom Goodwin and his wife Karen have been isolated in a lighthouse and only learn of the world emergency over the radio. Karen alerts Tom to a triffid growing on a ledge; inside they discover another and Tom has to battle it off. Though it appears dead, they discover that triffids can apparently regenerate themselves. The couple then barricade themselves in and set to work to discover some means of neutralising the plants.

After Masen and Susan finally make it to the dockyard, they only hear bad news from over the radio. They then cross into France, where they come across Christine Durant at a roadblock. She guides them to a chateau which is serving as a refuge for the blind. While looking for supplies at a grocery store with Mr Coker, a worker at the castle, they discover dozens of the plants, and Coker dies while they are returning to the chateau to warn the others. Later the place is invaded by escaped convicts and during the mayhem triffids move in and kill everyone except Tom, Susan and Christine, who manage to get away in the prison bus.

After discovering that Toulon is in flames, Masen next heads for the American naval base in Cádiz. On their way they encounter a blind couple, Luis de la Vega and his pregnant wife Teresa, and help her deliver a baby boy. Luis tells Masen that the Cadiz base has been evacuated by submarine since those who were underwater didn't get blinded by the meteor shower. Masen gets de Vega's radio transmitter working just in time to hear the navy broadcasting a message about a final survivor pickup in Alicante the next day and a warning to beware of wandering bands of triffids.

The group decides to leave early in the morning and Masen electrifies the enclosing fence around the villa during the night as a precaution. When triffids arrive, the current is too weak to hold them for long and Masen has to improvise a flamethrower from a fuel truck to keep them off. He also realizes that the triffids are attracted to sound, so he decoys them next day with a musical clown car while the others escape. He himself manages to attract the attention of a naval dinghy, which picks him up and takes him to the submarine.

Back at the lighthouse, the triffids manage to break in while Tom and Karen retreat to the top of the stairs. In a last effort to hold them off, Tom sprays them with a salt-water fire hose and the triffids begin to dissolve in a cloud of green smoke. Tom realizes that sea water was the answer they have been looking for all along and uses the hose to kill the rest of the Triffids in the lighthouse.

At the end, the narrator states that humanity has conquered the triffids by turning to the very thing that gave humans life in the beginning: sea water. Meanwhile, the people from the submarine have disembarked and are heading up to a church to give thanks for their survival.

The series takes place in late 20th century Britain. A spectacular meteorite shower unexpectedly renders most of humanity blind, leading to the breakdown of society overnight. Unaware of this, Bill Masen (John Duttine) has retained his sight by virtue of being in hospital with his eyes bandaged at the time of the shower. Bill works on a Triffid farm, where the mobile and carnivorous plants are cultivated for their oil with their deadly stings retained, which improves the oil quality. Prior to the story he was stung by a plant and even though he was wearing protective clothing, some of the poison got into his eyes. In the hospital he tentatively removes the bandages and gradually discovers the catastrophe around him.

He rescues Josella "Jo" Playton (Emma Relph) from her blind captor and finds that she had slept through the meteorite shower thus keeping her sight. They eventually come across a small band of similarly lucky survivors who have decided to leave London and establish a community elsewhere to begin rebuilding civilisation. They are initially opposed by sighted Jack Coker (Maurice Colbourne), who wants them to stay in London and help the blind, not abandon them. When the others reject his scheme, he and a few sighted helpers capture some of the group, including Bill and Jo. He assigns each to a different group of the blind. Bill is handcuffed to two of his charges to prevent him leaving them.

The Triffids get loose and run amok amongst the helpless blind human population, slaughtering and feeding on them. Between the Triffids and a mysterious deadly disease, most of Bill's group eventually die; the rest scatter. Bill starts searching for Jo and teams up with Jack, who admits his plan did not work as he had hoped. They drive through the English countryside and encounter part of the group that had left London. The group had split after a disagreement over morality: the ones who stayed behind, led by Miss Durrant (Perlita Neilson), refused to accept that polygamy would be necessary to repopulate the world. After more fruitless searching, Jack decides to return to Miss Durrant's community.

Bill meets a young girl, Susan, and she accompanies him. Finally, he recalls that Jo had spoken of a place belonging to her friends in the Sussex Downs. There he is reunited with her and after erecting a protective fence around the farm to keep out the Triffids, they settle down and start raising a family. Six years pass, and one day Jack shows up in a helicopter. Miss Durrant's group had been wiped out by the disease but the other faction had secured the Isle of Wight and exterminated the local Triffid population. With the situation gradually deteriorating where they are, Bill, Jo, and the blind friends who own the farm, as well as the children prepare to join them.

Before they can leave, several uniformed men arrive in an armoured car the next day; they are part of an organisation that is setting up a feudal society, with the sighted as the new aristocracy. In their setup, one sighted person is in charge of ten of the blind. They plan to assign more blind people to Bill and Jo, and take Susan away to learn how to care for others. Bill gets the soldiers drunk and sabotages their armoured vehicle. Early the next morning, Bill and the rest of the group drive away, leaving the gates open for the besieging Triffids as they approach the soldiers.

The novel revolves around two men, Charlie Millar and George, both secret agents who are mistakenly placed together as employees in a photo kiosk at Oxford Circus. Neither man is aware of the other's real identity. Then a "Frame Thirteen" order comes through, instructing each to assassinate the other.

Charlie and George try at first to carry out the order. But in time they learn that the real problem lies with the organisation for which they both work. As the chase begins, the two men come to understand that things not what they seem, and out pour secrets that will rattle the foundations of the British Intelligence Service.

The novel is told from the perspective of its protagonist Simplicius, a rogue or picaro typical of the picaresque novel, as he traverses the tumultuous world of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was. After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternative world inhabited by mermen. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt.

Ambrose Ashley is the owner of a large country estate on the Cornish coast and has been guardian to his orphaned cousin Philip since Philip was three years old. On Sundays, Philip's godfather, Nick Kendall, and his daughter Louise come to lunch with them, as do the Reverend Mr Pascoe and his family. Life is good apart from a few health problems that require Ambrose to spend the winter in warmer climates. As the damp weather approaches, he sets off for his third winter abroad and chooses Italy.

By the time he has reached his twenties, Philip misses Ambrose on his sojourns in Italy but regularly receives letters from him. Ambrose writes that he has met a cousin of theirs called Rachel — the widowed Contessa Sangalletti — in Florence. In the spring, Ambrose says that he and Rachel are married and have no immediate plans to return to Cornwall. Gradually, the tone of Ambrose's correspondence changes. He complains of the sun, the stuffy atmosphere of the Villa Sangalletti, and terrible headaches. In a letter that reaches Philip in July, Ambrose says that a friend of Rachel's called Rainaldi has recommended that Ambrose see a different doctor. Ambrose says he can trust no one and claims that Rachel watches him constantly.

Philip discusses the contents of the letter with his godfather Nick, who is his guardian until his coming of age at 25. Nick suggests that Ambrose may be suffering from a brain tumour. Philip travels to Italy and reaches the Villa Sangalletti, where he learns that Ambrose is dead and that Rachel has left the villa. When Philip returns to Cornwall, Nick tells Philip that he has received a communication from Rainaldi, containing two pieces of information: the death certificate confirms that Ambrose's cause of death was a brain tumour, and, as Ambrose had never changed his will in Rachel's favour, Philip is still heir to the estate.

Two weeks later, Nick receives word from Rachel, saying that she has arrived by boat at Plymouth. Philip invites her to stay with him, and a harmony develops between them. One day, a tenant from East Lodge gives Philip a letter from Ambrose, written three months before his death. In it, Ambrose tells Philip about his illness and talks of Rachel's recklessness with money and her habit of turning to Rainaldi rather than himself. Finally, he wonders if they are trying to poison him, and he asks Philip to come to see him. Rachel later shows Philip an unsigned will that Ambrose wrote in which he leaves his property to Rachel. Philip begins to trust Rachel again.

On the day before Philip's 25th birthday, he prepares to transfer Ambrose's estate to Rachel. He also gives her the family jewels, and they make love. The next day, Philip announces that he and Rachel are getting married, but she denies this in front of friends. Not long afterward, Philip falls ill for many weeks, during which Rachel nurses him. Philip searches her room and finds the seeds of the poisonous laburnum tree in a packet - a tree which he had noticed in the Italian villa. When he is well enough to go outside, he finds that the terraced gardens are complete and that work has begun on a sunken garden. The foreman tells Philip that the bridge over the garden is a framework and will not bear any weight.

Philip suspects that Rachel tried to poison him and, with Louise's help, searches her room. They find nothing to incriminate Rachel and wonder if they are misjudging her. Meanwhile, Rachel has walked to the terraced garden and stepped onto the bridge over the sunken garden. Philip finds her broken body lying amongst the timber and stone. He takes her in his arms, and she looks at him, calling him Ambrose before she dies.

The book's title reflects Philip's consistent references to Rachel as "my cousin Rachel" up to the moment he realises that he is in love with her.

A Soviet Railway train passes through the station of Czaszyn, Poland, at night. The first characters of the novel are introduced: a young, unnamed French student, and Evgeni Golozov, a Ukrainian polyglot born in 1918 who is a member of the Central Committee and the ''de facto'' personal secretary to Vasili Aleksandrovič Čevčenko. Čevčenko, an old paralyzed man who lies in bed in the next car reading the ''Pravda'', is the Éminence Grise behind the whole novel: born in 1895, he has fought in the Revolution of 1917, has met Lenin and Stalin and has been an executive of the Cheka and the GPU. The train finally reaches its destination in Królówka, Poland.

Shortly, other hunting party guests arrive at the platform: Ion Nicolescu (born on the Danube Delta, Romania, in 1918, an executive of the Securitate and member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party; and Janos Molnar, vice-Interior Minister at Budapest. Nicolescu was a follower of Gheorghiu-Dej in 1948 and in charge of the purges, but fell in political disgrace in 1952, until new purges favoured his return to power in the Securitate in 1957, after which he has been steadily climbing the ranks of the Central Committee.

The guests board a motorcade and depart towards Strzyżów, to Tadeusz Boczek's country estate, a large mansion evidently expropriated from wealthy landowners during the Communist takeover of Poland. There is a hint that Boczek was only granted such a property as honorable exile after political disgrace. He goes on to describe his memories of storks nesting on the multicoloured chimneys of his childhood village and pelicans going after fish in the Danube Delta. Vasil Strojanov, in his cynical and drunken way, is moved enough to recount his own experience as a partisan and member of the Dimitrov cabinet. Strojanov was the only one to escape hanging under charges of Titoism. Since then, Strojanov has had a recurring nightmare: a hideous monster-beast with sharp teeth, gray, stonelike skin and breasts similar to a female animal's mammaries, rising over a snow-covered landscape along with a red star. In the dream, the beast is Strojanov himself, or maybe "The Party itself, of which I am but a swearing mouth, a bloodthirsty claw". The conversation is interrupted by Schütz, who coolly disapproves of his comrades' "puerile idealism" and proudly reminds them he voted against Kafka's rehabilitation from charges of "bourgeois pessimism". Boczek saves everyone from further embarrassment by calling them to dinner.

In the ''Homo Sol'' stories, the Galactic Federation has developed psychology into a hard science, with quantitative equations and solutions for behavior. Consequently, master psychologists are important and highly regarded.

The Solarians (meaning humans, also referred to as Homo Sol) have developed hyperspace travel and landed on a planet of Alpha Centauri, thus qualifying for acceptance into the Galactic Federation of intelligent humanoid species.

Tan Porus, master psychologist at Arcturus University, is invited to join the delegation to be sent to administer the invitation, but sends one of his assistants. The delegation returns in despair; not only have the Solarians refused the invitation, but they exhibit irrational and war-like behavior that contravenes the sacrosanct psychological laws established over millennia by Federation psychologists.

In opposition to his doubting colleagues, Porus insists that the hominids of this new planet are something special: a species susceptible to panic ''en masse''. "What of Kraut's Law," a colleague asks him, "which says it is impossible to panic more than five hominids at a time?" Porus dismisses this with scorn, manipulates the Federation Council into sending him to Earth to demonstrate his thesis, and in a short time broadcasts back the results of his demonstration: "Panic, morons! World-wide panic!" Porus is eventually able to work out the psychological means to convince the Solarians to accept membership in the Federation.

The story takes place in the year 2363. The protagonist is Cadet Larry Stark, a 20-year-old, fresh graduate of the Space Patrol Academy who comes from a long line of Space Patrol commanders. As the story begins, he is embarking on the customary final training cruise on the interstellar ship ''Carden''. At the end of this cruise, he will be awarded a commission as officer of the Space Patrol. The ship makes the four and a half light-year journey to the star Alpha Centauri in a span of 15 days using the faster-than-light overdrive. The fourth planet orbiting Alpha C, an earth-like planet inhabited by dinosaurs, has been colonized 125 years earlier.

Cadet Stark, who has been taught to obey orders and to trust the infallibility of Earth and the Space Patrol, arrives at planet IV of Alpha C just as the colonists are voting to declare, and possibly fight for, their independence from Earth. The arrival of the ''Carden'' and its crew can potentially affect the course of events in this revolution. The young cadet, for the first time in his life, must choose the proper and honorable course of action in a situation where there is no clear right and wrong. The consequences of his actions may place in jeopardy his career with the Space Patrol and the love of his father.

Retired teacher Dorothy Livingston is visiting her niece when she bumps into a man she recognizes. Dorothy and her niece follow him and Dorothy tells her niece how she met the man in 1933.

Dorothy was assigned to a school in West Virginia and replaced a teacher who told her that Mica Frost, one of her students, should be allowed access to the library at all times. She meets Mica and discovers that he enjoys scribbling in his notebook. She believes Mica's behavior to be unusual and asks him to schedule a parent-teacher conference. Mica informs her that his parents are dead and he lives with his grandfather, who he refuses to let her meet.

Mica secretly takes extra books home. Dorothy visits and finds that the boy is reading the books to his ailing grandfather. Mica now confesses that the old man is not his grandfather but actually his great-great-great-grandfather, who he claims to be 133 years old. He says he has kept the old man alive by reading to him a story every night, but never finishing the story until the next night, claiming the suspense is the only thing keeping the old man alive. He claims he's continuing the tradition as his father and grandfather did.

The next morning at school, Mica falls from a tree, hits his head, and breaks his arm. He is taken to the town doctor to spend the night but he fights back because no one will be home to keep his "grandfather" alive. Dorothy goes to their house and tells his grandfather a story she makes up on the fly. The next day, Mica rushes home to find that his grandfather still alive and well. Dorothy tells Mica that she still does not believe in his storytelling method but thought it would not hurt to tell one just in case.

Back in the present, the adult Mica enters an apartment building followed closely by Dorothy and her niece. As they sneak into Mica's apartment, Dorothy is heard narrating the events at some future date. As she pauses in the narrative, her mother asks excitedly, "Is the old man there? Is he 200 years old?" Dorothy answers: "I can't say, mother. Not until tomorrow." and leaves with the old woman waiting for tomorrow’s story. 

''Outlanders'' begins in modern day Tokyo with the arrival of a Biomech, a giant, organic starship that easily destroys several Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) helicopters. News photographer Tetsuya Wakatsuki comes face-to-face with the craft's occupant Kahm, crown princess of the technologically advanced, interstellar Santovasku Empire. She charges him, he manages to fend her off, and she retreats without her sword. Kahm's father, Emperor Quevas, is informed that the Santovaskuan "sacred planet" is infested with humans while the JSDF supreme commander Togo prepares for an impending war with the alien invaders. Battia Bureitin Rou, a Santovasku fleet commander and Kahm's best friend, is sent to retrieve the princess when she returns to the city in search of her sword. During a skirmish with the humans, Battia's ship takes heavy damage, which triggers the Biomech's self-destruct mechanism. Having found her sword and Tetsuya in his apartment, Kahm receives a warning from Battia and evacuates with Tetsuya as the entire Japanese archipelago is vaporized. Meanwhile, Tetsuya's boss, Aki Okazawa, is taken to Siberia by the JSDF. There she meets Neo, Togo's superior and the leader of the secret world political organization known as the Shadow Cabinet. He exposits that millions of years earlier Earth was the seat of the Ra Empire, torn apart in a civil war between two belligerants: the Yoma Clan and the progenitors of the current Santovasku Empire. Neo, himself a surviving Yoma from this conflict, tells Aki that her body houses the spirit of the Yoma witch Jilehr Maruda and that he wishes to utilize her immense power to exact revenge on the Santovasku. Shortly thereafter, Quevas gives the order for all human life to be exterminated, resulting in large portions Europe being bombarded by the empire. Neo awakens Jilehr within Aki and the assaulting platoon is instantly obliterated by her magic.

Tetsuya hears of Japan's fate and forces Kahm to return him to Earth. The two crash land in Germany and meet scavenger Raisa Vogel. They evade capture by German troops and Raisa splits off on her own. Kahm and Tetsuya discuss marrying to create a diplomatic alliance between the humans and Santovasku. The couple rendezvous with Kahm's Nuba Tribe servants, use her crashed ship's communicator to call for extraction, and set a course for the Santovasku imperial home world. Battia joins them. Kahm tells her she is denouncing her father's intention of arranging her marriage to produce a royal heir and is strategically marrying Tetsuya to stop the war. Once arriving and making their case, an unconvinced Quevas has Tetsuya arrested and sentences him to death then puts Kahm under house arrest. With the aid of Battia and the Nuba, they manage to escape and head for Earth again in hopes of gaining support from its military to fight the empire instead. Realizing their affection for one another has grown, Kahm and Tetsuya still intend to wed. Upon reaching Earth's orbit, Kahm pleads with empire affiliate Geobaldi to join their efforts, which he does following a duel with Tetsuya. Neo continues to groom Jilehr in exacting vengeance on the Santovasku. Togo, now the head of Earth's global armed forces, plots against the Yoma so that humanity alone may ultimately triumph so that he can achieve his own ambitions of galactic conquest.

The rebels land on Earth, reunite with Raisa, and have brief diplomatic talks with Togo before leaving. Togo then has Neo gunned down and initiates Operation Phoenix. This unveils the Earth's moon as an enormous weapon called Dola, which was built by the Ra Empire eons ago. Raisa and Aki both join the rebels and take part in Kahm and Tetsuya's wedding. The festivities are cut short when an imperial army group is sent to their location by Quevas to demolish Earth for Kahm's continued defiance. A large battle between the Santovasku and rebel squadron ensues. Aki becomes Jilehr once more and takes control of the rebel vessels while Togo gives the command to have Dola strike the battlefield frontlines. A substantial percentage of the Santovasku fleet is vanquished, but as Togo's team celebrates they receive a taunting call from Jilehr. Realizing the sorceress survived the initial blast, Togo desperately demands another to eliminate her. However, the humans lose control of the ancient weapon to Jilehr as she sets it on a collision course with Earth. After madly proclaiming his aspirations to rule the galaxy, the selfish Togo is assassinated by one of his officers just as Dola and planet impact, wiping out humanity.

The protagonists find that they have warped to the outskirts of the Santovasku imperial planet. Jilehr shows herself again, this time surrounded by the vengeful ghosts of the Yoma Clan. Jilehr causes the rebel Biomechs to fire on the planet, prompting Quevas to engage with her in a fierce battle of magic. Before the Yoma spirits succumb to the emperor's overwhelming abilities, Aki breaks free of Jilehr's hold and dies. Quevas subsequently appears aboard Kahm's spacecraft. He reveals his initial plan to reclaim Earth was to ensure the Yoma's eradication. He then teleports with his daughter to the planet's imperial palace. With Jilehr gone, the rebels regain control of their warships and breach the planet's defenses to rescue Kahm once more. Battia, Geobaldi, and Raisa all sacrifice their lives so that Tetsuya can reach the palace. Tetsuya proceeds to the royal throne room and is confronted by a hostile Kahm. With no memory of her husband due to the influence of her father's mind control, she attacks Tetsuya only to come to her senses moments later. A final confrontation between Quevas and Kahm ends with the princess fatally wounding the emperor with a sword stab. His death brings with it the destruction of the imperial planet and the Santovasku Empire. Kahm and Tetsuya manage to depart with the Nuba just as the planet explodes. Three years later, they have happily settled on the peaceful planet Ekoda. Now with quintuplet daughters and one son, Kahm and Tetsuya receive a visit from the souls of their deceased friends during an annual festival.

Gilly Noble takes a stray cat named "Ringo" to the animal shelter where he works in Shelbyville, Indiana. Gilly gets his hair cut by a beautiful young aspiring hairdresser named Jo Wingfield. As Jo cuts Gilly's hair, she mentions that she recently lost a tail-less cat named Ringo, leading Gilly to tell her that Ringo is at the pound. The excitement causes Jo to accidentally cut off a part of Gilly's ear, and he is rushed to the hospital where the ear is reattached. To make up for the incident, Jo invites Gilly to her house for lunch the next day, where Gilly meets Jo's greedy, self-centered mother, Valdine, and invalid father, Walter.

Gilly and Jo date for six months before getting engaged, but suddenly a private detective, Vic Vetter, contacts Gilly to tell him that he's Valdine and Walter's son. After Gilly and Jo end their incestuous relationship, Gilly moves in with his new family, and Jo moves to Beaver, Oregon to start a new life. After being branded a "sister-fucker", Gilly loses his job at the animal shelter and is forced to take a job removing roadkill for the highway department.

Sixteen months later, a surprise comes to the Wingfield doorstep in the form of a young man named Leon Pitofsky, who claims to be Valdine and Walter's son and presents his birth certificate as proof. Valdine and Walter feel better for a few moments before angrily lashing out at Gilly and forcing him to leave. Valdine notifies the Beaver police that Gilly is a sex offender. Gilly runs for his life and decides to go to Oregon to inform Jo. On the way to Oregon, he befriends a pilot with two prosthetic legs named Dig.

Meanwhile, Jo becomes engaged to her ex-boyfriend Jack Mitchelson, a rich and powerful young man who secretly deals in marijuana, controls over half the town by paying off numerous politicians, and cheats on Jo with his ex-girlfriend, a local cop named Gina. Valdine keeps pushing Jo to marry Jack in order to become involved with Jack's wealth, although Jo still loves Gilly. Valdine keeps Leon secluded and tells Jo that Leon is a figment of Gilly's imagination. Gilly tries to hide from the authorities, and Dig frequently aids him in his escape from Jack's henchmen.

Ultimately, Gilly is not able to stop Jo from marrying Jack, who still believes that Gilly is her brother. Police arrive at the marriage scene to inform the family that Gilly died in a car accident, which was actually an act of sabotage by Leon who has been arrested. Jo learns the truth and ends her marriage which causes Valdine to attack Leon and have a stroke. It's also revealed that Jack was behind Valdine and Walter being misidentified as Gilly's parents. But unknown to everyone, Gilly was not driving the car at the time of the accident when it was actually one of Jack's henchmen Streak. Gilly, who has just returned to working at the animal shelter, sees Jo and mistakenly believes that she wants to commit suicide. They are finally reunited on the roof of the same animal shelter that was a catalyst for their coming together.

A few months later, Gilly and Jo are married, and Walter, Valdine, Leon, Dig, and many other people attend, with Walter on his feet and Valdine in a wheelchair after her stroke. Also, as a surprise wedding present, Vetter arrives and tells him that he has truly found his mother. In an ironic twist, Gilly's mother turns out to be Suzanne Somers, whom Gilly used to fantasize about while masturbating.

The setting is in Northern Europe in 928 AD. A traveler (the player) comes upon a town named Tirich hoping to find food and shelter. However, the town appears to be invaded by demons. The traveler must help the townspeople and lift the curse from the town by freeing the young sorceress Ečstatica from her possession.

The chronicles of the space age written through a certain immortal psionic's activity.

In 1870s New York City, gentleman lawyer Newland Archer is planning to marry the respectable young May Welland. May's cousin, the American heiress Countess Ellen Olenska, has returned to New York after a disastrous marriage to a dissolute Polish Count. At first she is ostracized by society and vicious rumors are spread, but, as May's family boldly stands by the countess, she is gradually accepted by the very finest of New York's old families.

The countess is snubbed at one social party arranged by her family, but with the help of Archer, she is able to make a comeback at an event being hosted by the wealthy Van der Luydens. There she makes the acquaintance of one of New York's established financiers, Julius Beaufort, who has a reputation for risky affairs and dissipated habits. He begins to openly flirt with the countess both in public and in private. Archer prematurely announces his engagement to May, but as he comes to know the countess, he begins to appreciate her unconventional views on New York society and he becomes increasingly disillusioned with his new fiancée May and her innocence, lack of personal opinion, and sense of self.

After the countess announces her intention of divorcing her husband, Archer supports her desire for freedom, but he feels compelled to act on behalf of the family and persuade the countess to remain married. When Archer realizes that he has unwittingly been falling in love with the countess, he abruptly leaves the next day to be reunited with May and her parents, who are in St. Augustine, FL on vacation. Archer asks May to shorten their engagement, but May becomes suspicious and asks him if his hurry to get married is prompted by the fear that he is marrying the wrong person. Archer reassures May that he is in love with her. When back in New York, Archer calls on the countess and admits that he is in love with her, but a telegram arrives from May announcing that her parents have pushed forward the wedding date.

After their wedding and honeymoon, Archer and May settle down to married life in New York. Over time, Archer's memory of the countess fades.

When the countess returns to New York to care for her grandmother, she and Archer resume their friendship and then admit their love for each other. They arrange to meet secretly to consummate their relationship, but before the liaison can occur, the countess suddenly announces her intention to return to Europe.

Two weeks later, May throws a farewell party for the countess. After the guests leave, May tells Archer that she is pregnant and admits that she told the countess this news two weeks earlier despite not being sure of it at the time (the implication being that May suspected Newland’s affair of the heart and told Ellen specifically to push her into returning to Europe instead of pursuing Archer).

The years pass: Archer is 57 and has been a dutiful, loving father and faithful husband. The Archers had four children. May died of infectious pneumonia and Archer mourned her in earnest. Archer's engaged son, Ted, persuades him to travel to Paris. Ted has arranged for them to visit Countess Olenska there. Archer has not seen her in over 25 years. Ted confides to his father that May had confessed on her deathbed that "... she knew we were safe with you, and always would be. Because once, when she asked you to, you gave up the thing you wanted most." Archer responds, "She never asked me." That evening outside the countess' apartment, Archer sends his son alone to visit her. Sitting outside in the courtyard, he recollects their time together and slowly walks off.

Eric Binford is a hollow, chain smoking, socially awkward and unlikeable young man who is also an obsessed film addict whose love of old films extends far beyond his job at a Los Angeles film distributor's warehouse and endless late-night film screenings in his bedroom. For his vast knowledge, he has been bullied by his friends and family. His singular obsession eventually turns into psychosis after he crosses paths with Marilyn O'Connor, an Australian model and Marilyn Monroe lookalike who becomes the physical embodiment of his cinematic desires.

After Marilyn unintentionally stands up Eric on their first date, Eric becomes homicidally unbalanced, transforming himself into a gallery of classic film characters—including Dracula, The Mummy and Hopalong Cassidy—and sets out to destroy his oppressors, starting with his abusive and crotchety, wheelchair-using, ex-dancer, Aunt Stella, pushing her wheelchair down a staircase to her death (reenacting a scene from ''Kiss of Death'' (1947)) and making this look like an accident. Eric attends her funeral dressed as Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark's role from the aforementioned film).

Eric then dresses up as Count Dracula to attend a midnight screening of ''Night of the Living Dead'' (1968) at a local cinema. Afterwards, he bursts in on Marilyn in the shower while looking for an autograph in a scene straight out of ''Psycho'' (1960); he escapes and targets a sex worker who had insulted him earlier. She trips, falling to her death, and Eric licks her blood off his fingers.

Eric becomes more and more unhinged from reality as the film progresses. A few nights later, Eric dresses up as the cowboy Hopalong Cassidy, when he shoots and kills Richie, a boorish co-worker who taunted him on a regular basis and beat him up after welching on a bet that Eric won. Not long after, Eric dresses up as The Mummy and drives his mean and vindictive boss, Mr. Berger, into suffering a deadly heart attack while he is working late at night at his distribution warehouse.

Finally, Eric dresses up as gangster Cody Jarrett (from ''White Heat'' (1949)) and kills a sleazy filmmaker named Gary Bially, who stole his idea as his own for an upcoming feature film inspired by ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' (to be called "Alabama and the Forty Thieves") at a barber shop in broad daylight, which finally gives away his identity. Eric then eventually works his way toward Marilyn, hoping to lure her to his side.

Investigating the murders is a criminal psychologist named Dr. Jerry Moriarty, who tries to find a pattern to the murders and find Eric, to help or stop him, with the assistance of a friendly policewoman who has discovered that Eric's Aunt Stella is actually his mother. Moriarty's investigation is hampered by his own mean-spirited and nasty boss, Captain Gallagher, who tries to stop Moriarty's investigation because Gallagher wants to take all the credit of finding the killer for himself.

This all leads to Eric luring Marilyn to a photography studio where he drugs her to reenact a scene from ''The Prince and the Showgirl'' (1957) which is interrupted when Dr. Moriarty arrives, and Eric is forced to run with Marilyn at his side. This leads to the Mann's Chinese Theatre where the insane Eric is shot by the police on the roof of the building while reenacting Cody Jarrett's death scene in ''White Heat''. Eric then falls off the roof to his apparent death on the pavement below.

Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien enter a Mayan temple, where they find Hellboy battling a gigantic zombie bat, and engage its zombie followers. The group are eventually able to defeat their opponents when Liz unleashes her pyrokinetic powers, although she is still unsure of her ability to control those powers.

Meanwhile, Japanese folklore expert Professor Mitsuyasu Sakai obtains an ancient scroll. It tells the myth of two demonic brothers, Thunder and Lightning. Hundreds of years ago, the brothers roamed Japan, unleashing storms on the lands of a Daimyō (lord). In exchange for mercy, the Daimyō promises to give them his beautiful daughter. One of the Daimyō's samurai warriors is in love with the daughter and hides her in a shrine to protect her. Armed with the Sword of Storms, a mystical katana imbued with an ancient spell to defeat Thunder and Lightning, the warrior battles the demons and traps their spirits in the sword. Although his lands and daughter are saved, the Daimyō is displeased because the samurai has broken the Daimyō's promise, a dishonor. In vengeance, the Daimyō summons the gods to turn the warrior to stone and then kills his daughter in the shrine.

In current-day Japan, Professor Sakai is possessed by the spirits of Thunder and Lightning while reading the scroll. The demonic brothers send the professor in search of the mystical sword. When he attacks its current owner, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is alerted and Hellboy, Kate Corrigan, and a psychic named Russell Thorne are called in to investigate. During the investigation, Hellboy picks up a discarded katana and vanishes to another dimension that is reminiscent of ancient Japan. Hellboy meets a wise kitsune, who tells him that he holds the Sword of Storms and that the goal of his journey lies to the west. Hellboy travels through the alternate universe and learns that he can only return to his own world by breaking the sword, although that will also free the demonic brothers. Along the way, Hellboy encounters several mythical Yōkai, sent by the still-possessed Sakai, who try to steal the sword from him, including the kappa, a trio of rokurokubi, a group of nukekubi, a Jorōgumo, Gashadokuro, tengu, Yomotsu-shikome, and the restless ghost of the Daimyō's daughter. Hellboy is able to outsmart or defeat all of them.

Meanwhile, Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman are called to the sites of disturbing earthquakes and discover that Thunder and Lightning are summoning their brothers, the dragons. They meet the same kitsune who guided Hellboy and are instructed to stop the dragons. A sea-dragon attacks them, but Liz manages to hold it back using her pyrokinetic abilities.

Professor Sakai travels to the shrine where the Daimyō killed his daughter, followed by Kate and Russell who have just survived an attack by several objects from Japanese folklore. At the same time, Hellboy is tricked into smashing the sword against the samurai's stone form, which destroys the sword, releases Thunder and Lightning, frees Professor Sakai, and returns Hellboy to the modern-day shrine. Hellboy eventually traps both spirits in the sword again, which reseals the dragons into the underworld. The ghosts of the daughter and the Daimyō possess Kate and Russell, in order to replay the daughter's execution. Hellboy accidentally frees the ghost of the samurai warrior from its stone form and then convinces the Daimyō to forgive his daughter and the warrior, thereby breaking the cycle of their unending deaths. The spirits depart, thankful to Hellboy and the others for helping them.

The film is told in flashbacks detailing the girls' relationship (in color), and their time in juvenile detention center (in black and white). Bonnie (Witt), aged 14, and Hillary (Humphrey), aged 15, meet at a bus stop in Los Angeles, California, and begin a friendship. They stroll around their city, chuck rocks onto a highway from an overpass bridge, run rampant in shopping malls, and play video games.

Their day escalates into an eruption of violence and rage when they brutally stab an elderly woman to death. They then run to a gas station and attempt to wash off the blood from their clothes. After their arrest, they claim that the murder was purely just for "fun". The story moves from the juvenile detention center where the girls are kept, to the girls on the day of the killing.

In 1939, shown in a series of flashbacks played in reverse chronological order, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm investigates a series of murders in Eastern Europe. Erzebet Ondrushko, a vampire who bathed in the blood of innocents to stay young, was responsible. She had sold her soul to the Queen of Witches, the goddess Hecate, and most recently kidnapped the fiancée of one of the townsmen. When the search party, including the local priest, Father Lupescu, confronts Erzebet in her castle, all members of the party are horribly killed, and Bruttenholm must face the vampire alone. He tricks her into the sunlight, effectively destroying her, but her ashes swirl back into the castle to find sanctuary in her iron maiden.

In the present day, an elderly Bruttenholm, overcome with memories of his encounter with Erzebet, takes a particular interest in a publicity stunt case in the Hamptons on Long Island. A haunting has been reported in a mansion recently purchased by developer Oliver Trumbolt, a friend of a U.S. Senator with hands deep in the BPRD's budget, and considered a low priority. Bruttenhom insists that their most advanced team should go: Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien, Hellboy and junior agent Sydney Leach as well as himself (to everyone's surprise). Bruttenholm does not explain his motives at first.

The BPRD team arrives at Trumbolt's site and sets up to investigate the haunting. Despite a few open windows, a creepy lifelike replica of Erzabet, artifacts from her castle, and an old, suspiciously familiar-looking groundskeeper, everything seems normal until night falls and they each encounter strange ghostly apparitions, culminating in dozens of spirits of Erzabet's former victims. Excited that he may have found a goldmine, Trumbolt ignores the professor's warnings and is attacked.

Using his abilities to detect metal, Leach finds a secret passageway through the house's cellar, inadvertently coming across Trumbolt's body, drained of blood. The blood has been placed in a bathtub, apparently for Erzabet's revival. Bruttenholm and Liz head for the gardens to stop Hecate and Erzabet's Harpy-Hags from summoning her back from the dead. The aged groundskeeper, actually Father Lupescu who is in thrall to the vampire, is transformed into a werewolf by the harpies and sent to attack the team. Abe is knocked out and taken by the harpies for experimentation while Hellboy fights the werewolf, ultimately killing it.

Liz and Bruttenholm are attacked, first by demonic wolves to delay them from stopping the ritual, then by Erzabet in a restored but withered body, who knocks Liz out, beats Hellboy through a hole in the courtyard, and takes Bruttenholm back to the mansion. Erzabet bathes in Trumbolt's blood and rejuvenates herself, but she begins to wither and decay again – Bruttenholm poisoned the blood with Holy Water. He stakes the vampire through the heart, and she turns back to dust. Freed from their torment, the spirits of the house fade away, including Father Lupescu.

Meanwhile, under the mansion, Hellboy meets Hecate, who is perplexed as to why he helps the mortals, and tries to lure him to the dark side. He bluntly refuses again and again, battling Hecate's snakes as he tries to re-enter the mansion. Erzabet's death further enrages Hecate, who possesses the iron maiden, reshapes it into a semblance of her true form, and brutally attacks Hellboy. Abe escapes the harpies, after which they find Hecate fighting Hellboy; one is killed by Hecate's thrashing tail and the other flies away. Leach, Liz, and Abe attempt to help Hellboy stop the goddess, but are unsuccessful. A badly-wounded Hellboy realizes Hecate's weakness is the sun; he lures her outside, forcing her back into the darkness of her own realm, defeated.

After a postman drowns, Sanya, 8, finds a bag full of letters. As the envelopes are all wet, there is no way to read the addresses and send the letters. A neighbour, Aunt Dasha, reads the letters to anyone willing to listen during the cold winter evenings. Thus Sanya first hears of the lost Arctic expedition that will become the meaning of his life. For now on he is only fascinated by the brave people and their adventures, though he already can understand that the expedition is probably lost and all its participants are dead. Meanwhile, tragedy comes into his own life. One night he goes fishing in the river and witnesses a murder. Next morning his own father is accused of it, the accusation based on the knife with the name of "Grigoryev" beside the victim. Sanya knows that it is he who has lost the knife, but he cannot tell anything because he is mute. Sanya's father is taken to prison and eventually dies there. During the hard and hungry winter of father's being in prison, mother sends Sanya and his sister, also Sanya (he is Alexander and she is Alexandra) to a village to live the two of them all alone. There Sanya meets the Doctor, a runaway revolutionary, who teaches the boy to speak. He disappears three days after his mysterious arrival, but Sanya keeps practicing all winter - only to start speaking when it is told of father's death. Eventually mother comes for the children and takes them home, where they discover she is about to remarry. The stepfather turns out to be cruel and selfish, and he abuses the children heavily. Mother realizes that and soon dies, probably after committing suicide (this is not specified; it could be an accident after which she has no will to live, though suicide is also possible, as to parallel the fates of Sanya and Katya's parents). Sanya then agrees to his best friend Pyetka's urges and the two escape to search for a better life in Turkestan, which they see as a magical land of the East. They give each other a pledge taken from the poem Ulysses of Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield". This pledge always helps Sanya go on. After months of wandering through the winter forests, through war-beaten Russia of the 1917 winter, they end up in the hunger-stricken Moscow. Reality smashes in their faces, they get separated and lose each other for many years. Sanya ends up in an orphanage.

In the orphanage he meets two new friends, Valka and Romashka, and also the strict school headmaster, Nikolay Antonich Tatarinov. By chance - or fate - Sanya meets on the street an old woman originating from Sanya's own town, Ensk, and her granddaughter, Katya, of Sanya'a age. He soon realizes that they are his headmaster's family. After breaking the Tatarinov's lactometer, getting into a fight with Katya over that, and Katya's taking the blame, they become best friends and Sanya frequents the Tatarinov house, helping the old woman with the household. He also gets to meet the old woman's daughter, Katya's mother, Maria Vasilyevna, a mysterious sad woman. But one day, just after Sanya's beloved teacher, Korabliov, proposes to Maria Vasilyevna and gets a refusal, he overhears the teachers' cruel plot to destroy Korabliov, because he has gained the students' love and respect and has become more popular than the headmaster, and Sanya tells him of the plot. Nikolay Antonich discovers of Sanya's intervention (as it is discovered years later - through Romashka) and banishes him out of the house.

Years later, in the last school year, Sanya meets Katya again and realizes that he is in love with her. But Romashka spies on him kiss Katya and tells Nikolay Antonich. Nikolay Antonich sends Katya back to Ensk, but Sanya goes after her, thus visiting home, the beloved Aunt Dasha and the abandoned little sister for the first time since his escape. He finds the old letters and is shocked: only now does he realize that the mysterious letters of his childhood deal with no other than Katya's lost father, the Captain Tatarinov, one of them is actually from him - the last letters ever to have arrived, the letters Katya's mother has never seen. His letter clearly indicates that it was him who first discovered Severnaya Zemlya. But there is more: in his letter Katya's father accuses Nikolay Antonich of destroying the expedition, of doing everything to make it fail and the people never to return. But that page is missing: Sanya remembers it by heart, and his proof is a nickname that Katya's mother used to call Katya's father - Sanya could not have guessed or invented that nickname. Maria Vasilyevna believes Sanya. However, by now she is married to Nikolay Antonich, because she till now believed, according to his own words, that he actually was the great benefactor of the expedition, accusing the Captain, his cousin, to always have been a good-for-nothing who never succeeded in anything he tried to do. She believes Sanya - and commits suicide. Katya turns away from Sanya, Nikolay Antonich having convinced her and all the others that Sanya only slanders him. Sanya then swears to find the expedition and prove that he is right.

Sanya finishes school and fulfills his first dream - he becomes an Arctic pilot. While working in the North he meets again with the doctor who taught him to speak and discovers that the doctor possesses the diaries of the expedition's navigator. Sanya reads the diaries, but they do not contain any proof of Sanya's being right. One day, during a mission, Sanya and the doctor make a forced landing in a northern village, where they find a hook from Santa Maria, Captain Tatarinov's ship. An old native tells Sanya a ten-year-old story about himself finding a boat with a dead man in it. This is a proof that someone from the expedition has reached mainland, and that the remnants should be searched for in this region. Sanya comes back to Moscow and meets Katya again. He also meets a man who has to do with the expedition's organization, and his story, and the papers he has, are the lost proof. Korabliov tells all this to Katya and she realizes that Sanya was right. Sanya organizes a search expedition and leaves to the North again, as his leave is over.

Later in the year Sanya and Katya meet in Leningrad to get married and also to meet Sanya's sister and her husband, Sanya's best friend Pyetka, and be with them at the birth of their first son. But the sister is very ill during the birth and soon dies of complications. The search expedition is cancelled, probably through the efforts of Nikolay Antonich, who refuses to acknowledge his guilt, saying he will only accept one witness - the captain himself. Instead, Sanya is sent to the battlefields of the Civil War in Spain. When he returns, Sanya and Katya plan on finally starting their life together, but by then it's 1941 and the Germans invade Russia. Katya remains in Leningrad and is soon trapped in the blockade. During that horrid time Sanya's old enemy, Romashka, who has always been Nikolay Antonich's ally and all his life tried to harm Sanya, finds Katya. He tells her of meeting with the wounded Sanya on a bombed echelon and his apparent attempt to save Sanya's life. But after she finds in his pocket Sanya's documents, she starts thinking that Romashka has killed Sanya. Already starved and ill, she faints and gets worse. A friend manages, after many efforts, to send her away from the seized Leningrad.

Sanya, meanwhile, is not dead. It is true that he met Romashka on a bombed echelon, but Romashka abandoned him and ran away by himself, leaving Sanya, badly wounded in his legs and unable to move, to die in a forest under fire. Sanya manages to crawl out of the forest and is tended back to health by two little boys, and then goes to a field hospital. Upon leaving the hospital he is told that he will never fly again. Sanya tries to locate Katya but cannot find her trace, and starts believing that she is dead. Meanwhile, he is called back to fight, this time on the Northern front. He overcomes his condemnation and starts to fly again, bombing German ships invading the Northern Sea. During one of these fights he is forced to make a landing and thus finds the remnants of the expedition, and the Captain's last letters, clearly stating that all the blame is on Nikolay Antonich. He also finds the Captain himself, frozen to death 29 years ago.

One day he goes to visit his friend the Doctor and surprisingly meets Katya, who has come to the North in search for him. Sanya organizes a lecture about Captain Tatarinov and his achievements, and Nikolay Antonich is banished. Captain Tatarinov is buried with all honors on a shore facing the land he has discovered, and all ships passing through can see the engraving: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield".

Jones arrives at the bank to pay in his takings, and cash a cheque. Pike refuses to cash his cheque because he is overdrawn. In Mainwaring's office, Mainwaring attempts to explain why he cannot cash the cheque. Jones does not understand why, having just paid money in, he can't take money out. Mainwaring complains that the cheque is stained, and Jones explains it is from a piece of liver. Mainwaring then asks what Jones is going to do about 'it', meaning his overdraft, and Jones replies that maybe he could "keep the cheques away from the meat". Mainwaring insists on coming round to Jones's shop after work to try to see where his overdraft has come from.

After Jones has gone, rather upset, Wilson suggests Mainwaring could give Jones an overdraft because he is in the platoon, but Mainwaring refuses to bend the rules.

In Jones's shop Mainwaring attempts to examine Jones books, but chaos ensues. Mainwaring gets a fly paper stuck on his bowler hat and Pike attempts to cut if off, but trims off the rim as well, so Mainwaring cannot lift his hat. Pike then tips all Jones's carefully sorted ration tickets onto the floor. Mainwaring takes all Jones's books home, much to Frazer's horror.

The next morning, Jones agrees with Mainwaring's laborious conclusion from Jones's chaotic books that his business is £50 short, and then tells Mainwaring that he has an unpaid bill from the orphanage for £50, which he produces from his pocket. Mainwaring is furious at having all his time wasted. In attempting to track down why the orphanage cannot pay the £50, Mainwaring interviews, in turn, the Vicar, Miss Twelvetrees and Frazer. He then convenes a meeting, inviting Wilson, ARP Hodges, the Pikes, the Verger, the Vicar, Frazer, Godfrey and Jones.

In the meeting, Mainwaring tracks the £50. Mrs Pike borrowed it from Wilson, who borrowed it from Godfrey, who borrowed it from Frazer. Frazer then withheld his rent from Miss Twelvetrees, who could not make her usual donation to the vicar, who could not pay Jones's meat bill. The meeting hears with horror that Mrs Pike needed the money to pay a huge increase in rent demanded by her landlord, the Warden. Mrs Pike then says that Hodges had said he would "let me off if I was ''nice to him''". At this, Wilson deliberately gets up, walks slowly but purposefully round the table and punches the Warden in the face, knocking him off his chair. The room is stunned, especially the Pikes, who are very impressed. Hodges complains that he has always liked her but that she is besotted with Wilson to which Pike says "Why don't you hit him again, Uncle Arthur!" Hodges is shamed into cashing a £50 cheque from Mainwaring, who gives it to Mrs Pike, who gives it to Wilson, to Godfrey, to Frazer, to Miss Twelvetrees, to the Vicar, via the Verger to Jones, who gives it back to Mainwaring.

All is concluded, and Mainwaring's triumph seems complete and unblemished, but then he is confronted in front of everyone by the irate grocer, Mr Swann, to whom Mrs Mainwaring owes £49 17/6, and he has to pay up.

Setting

The island in the novel is inspired by the hilltop town of Hampstead in London and its famous parkland Hampstead Heath. In the book, Self describes a future England which has been inundated with rising seas, leaving Hampstead as the only remaining part of London. The inhabitants of this area, unaware that the drowned city of London is so close by, know their island as Ham. The geography of the island, illustrated in a map at the start of the book, bears close resemblance to the modern areas of Hampstead which inspired it.

Contemporary narrative

Dave Rudman, a London taxi-driver, has a casual sexual encounter with a young woman named Michelle Brodie. The pair do not meet for another seven months until a heavily pregnant Michelle arrives at Dave's flat. They marry, and Michelle gives birth to a boy, Carl, but the marriage is unsuccessful, and Michelle eventually files for divorce, after which she resumes an earlier relationship with the television producer Cal Devenish. Dave descends into depression and increasingly unstable behaviour, and Michelle forbids him contact with their son, Carl. Dave writes a book that consists partly of an account of cab-driving in London, and partly of a rant against the unfairness of divorce and child access legislation. He has a single copy of the book printed on metal plates and buries it in the garden of the house in Hampstead where Michelle lives with Cal and Carl.

Dave suffers a breakdown, and comes under the care of the psychiatrist Anthony Bohm. Despite discovering that Carl is actually Cal's son, Dave slowly recovers his sanity and, during a stay in hospital, forms a relationship with Phyllis Vance, the mother of Steve, another patient. Dave regrets the content of his book, and attempts to dig it up from the Hampstead garden, but fails. Dave moves into Phyllis's cottage on the fringes of outer London and, under her guidance, writes a second book that repudiates the content of the first, and recommends a life based on tolerance and freedom. He mails the new book to Carl, but shortly afterwards is confronted at the cottage by loan sharks to whom he is heavily indebted. Dave brandishes a shotgun but is fatally injured in a struggle with the men, who arrange the scene to make the death look like suicide – an arrangement that is readily believed by Phyllis and the police. Carl and Cal then place Dave's second book in a metal film canister and bury it in their garden.

Future narrative

On the isolated island of Ham, a tiny community ekes out an existence from the land, assisted by semi-intelligent pig-like creatures known as 'motos' that are unique to the island. The community lives according to the severely enforced religion of the country known as "Ing" (i.e. England) whereby men and women lead separate lives but share childcare in accordance with the dictates of the ''Book of Dave'', which is regarded as a sacred text, but which is evidently the book written by Dave Rudman and buried in a Hampstead garden some two thousand years earlier. A young male 'Hamster', Symun Devush, explores a forbidden area of the island and emerges claiming that he has discovered a second ''Book of Dave'' that repudiates the tenets of the first. Although Symun's revelations are popular, and he is lauded throughout the country as a prophet, religious authorities from the reconstructed city of New London send a deposition that arrests Symun on a charge of heresy (or 'flying') and transports him to New London, where he is physically and mentally broken, his tongue torn out, and returned to live in isolation on the desolate outcrop of land known as Nimar, not far from Ham.

Before being arrested, Symun conceives a son, Carl, who becomes an object of interest to Antone Böm, an exiled heretic. Böm believes that the second book of Dave discovered by Symun may be buried on the island, but his search for the book is a failure. Carl and Böm travel to New London in order to determine the fate of Symun and the second book but, soon after their arrival, the pair are arrested and sentenced to death. They escape, and discover Symun's fate on Nimar. Upon returning to Nimar, however, they find that Symun has died, and that his belongings include no second book but only a metal container filled with rotten debris. They return to Ham, where another delegation from New London is brutally mistreating the population and slaughtering the motos. As one of the Hamsters rebels against the slaughter, Carl and Böm reveal themselves.

The novel tells the tales of four women, working the graveyard shift at a Japanese bento factory. All four women live hard lives. Masako, the leader of the four women, feels completely alienated from her estranged husband and teenage son. Kuniko, a plump and rather vain girl, has recently been ditched by her boyfriend after the couple were driven into debt, leaving Kuniko to fend off a loan shark. Yoshie is a single mother and reluctant caretaker of her mother-in-law, who was left partly paralyzed after a stroke. Yayoi is a thirty-four-year-old mother of two small boys who she is forced to leave home alone, where they are abused by their drunken, gambling father, Kenji.

When Yayoi returns home one night, Kenji tells her that he has gambled all their savings away in a baccarat game. Yayoi becomes upset and questions Kenji about Anna, a hostess of the club where Kenji gambles, with whom she suspects he's having an affair. Earlier that night the club owner, Satake, ordered Kenji to stop stalking Anna. Kenji became belligerent and started assailing Satake, forcing him to kick Kenji down some stairs in the club. Nonetheless, Kenji, furious after Yayoi mentions Anna, begins hitting her. Yayoi snaps and strangles Kenji to death.

Yayoi desperately persuades Masako, with the eventual aid of Yoshie and Kuniko, to help her dispose of Kenji's body. The body is dismembered, secured in many black garbage bags, and hidden all over Tokyo. It isn't long before one carelessly hidden bag is discovered and the police begin to ask questions. As if things weren't bad enough, the women begin to blackmail each other, the loan shark is requiring their services, and a criminal who has lost everything because of their antics has begun to hunt the women down.

After pursuing and eventually destroying Bagular, White Bomber enjoyed a moment of rest with Black Bomber and his friends while returning home on a space shuttle. All passengers are unaware that four lights approach the shuttle, and they eventually collide with the ship. This creates a time hole in space that transports White and Black Bomber to the prehistoric age. There, White Bomber meets Great Bomber, who following the late Bagular's will, is leading the Four Bomber Kings on an operation through time to capture him and his friends. White Bomber and Black Bomber must battle through time to foil Bagular's plan.

Story

300 years before the opening of the game, the high priest of the Kingdom of Cheshire tried to disturb the balance of good and evil by summoning the dark god Arliman. Sabrina, Goddess of Light, saved the Kingdom by giving great powers to two of Cheshire's leaders who defeated the high priest and helped the King's high wizard, Gilliam, to entrap Arliman in a magical jewel. One of these two leaders, Armer, became ruler of Cheshire, succeeding the previous king, and establishing a bloodline as that which would carry through to King Armer VIII at the game's beginning.

Following the events of Arliman's capture, Velonese, the high wizard's top apprentice, was discovered to have been practicing forbidden spells. As punishment, the spell of immortality was cast upon Velonese, and he was given the task of guarding the imprisoned Arliman for eternity on the Island of Raven. Over the years, the essence of Arliman emanated from the jewel, corrupting Velonese and transforming him into the Dark Wizard. His anger towards Gilliam and the kingdom of Cheshire grew, and he used his knowledge of forbidden spells to summon four demon generals to conquer Cheshire while he attempted to free Arliman.

The player takes on the role of one of four playable main characters, prince Armer IX, cavalry leader Robin, sorceress Krystal, or vampire Amon, and must re-conquer the land that has already fallen into Velonese's hands and find a way to defeat him and prevent Arliman's resurrection. The four main characters feature largely different stories; however, every game begins with the King's death and the player character becoming the new ruler of Cheshire. There is no canonical link between the four characters and their stories, and Armer IX, while seemingly the rightful heir, has only a cameo in the other scenarios.

In "Immediately," a man leaves his girlfriend (Andrea) and falls in love with his homophobic cabdriver.

In "Obviously," a teenager (Joe) working at a multiplex takes tickets for ''Kickass: The Movie'' while pining for the teenage girl (Lila) working the shift with him. She has a boyfriend (Keith). Joe mentions a friend, Garth, who travels to San Francisco to meet with his girlfriend, Kate. This Kate is Kate Gordon, one of Flannery's friends in The Basic Eight, who is mentioned having a brief relationship with a guy named Garth in that novel.

In "Arguably," a British writer (Helena), who is married to a man (David) whose ex is called 'Andrea', needs money.

In "Particularly," Helena works for Andrea, whom she is jealous of.

In "Briefly," a teenager's crush on his sister's boyfriend (Keith) haunts him throughout life.

In "Soundly", a woman (Allison) -- who has an ex named 'Adam' -- spends an evening out with her best friend (Lila), who's dying of a rare disease, and they both focus on what their friendship means, particularly compared to their relationships with men. They reminisce about their friend 'Andrea' and an encounter with a boy named 'Joe'. "Allison" and "Lila" both crop up again as character names repeatedly throughout the book. Handler is sometimes clear about whether he's speaking about the same people, and sometimes not. As in most of the chapters, Handler here provides one possible definition of love: "[t]his is love, to sit with someone you've known forever in a place you've been meaning to go, and watching as their life happens to them until you stand up and it's time to go. You don't care about yours. Why should it change, the love you feel, no matter how death goes?". After a conversation with a woman named Gladys, who is able to make items appear out of thin air, Lila gets a call to come to the hospital for a transplant, but there is a problem with the ferry; some kind of disaster has occurred which means they cannot cross to the hospital. The guy working at the booth is called 'Tomas'.

In "Frigidly," a pair of detectives comes looking for the Snow Queen (Gladys) in a diner where Andrea is drinking at the counter. A boy (Mike), who had been a student of Helena, is waiting.

"Collectively" is about a man who has a series of random people, including a mail carrier and his son (Mike), coming to his house to declare how much they love him. "Isn't love a sharing?", asks the narrator, trying to explain the postman's (and everyone else's) strange longing for the house owner. The story concludes with the man sharing accepting the affection of his guests by sharing a smoothie with them.

In "Symbolically," an aspiring writer (Tomas) hooks up with a man (Adam) who has come to film a potential catastrophe. The next day, the man returns with his girlfriend (Eddie).

In "Clearly," a young couple (Adam and Eddie) sneaks away into the woods for some risqué outdoor sex. After they have undressed, an apologetic hiker (Tomas) interrupts them with news of an injured friend (Steven). The couple attend to the hiker's needs, leaving their own hanging.

The female character (Eddie) in "Naturally" dates a man who turns out to be a ghost. When she discovers this, she ends their union. Her ex is called 'Joe'.

"Wrongly" features a graduate student (Allison) inexplicably drawn to a colleague (Steven) who's already treated her badly.

In "Truly," Daniel Handler explains the game Adverbs: "Someone is It and leaves the room and everyone else decides on an adverb. It returns and forces people to act out things in the manner of the word, which is another name for the game. People argue ''violently'', or make coffee ''quickly'', and there's always a time when the alcohol takes over and people suggest ''hornily'' and we all must watch as It makes two people writhe on the floor, supposedly dancing or eating or driving a car, until finally It guesses the adverb everyone's thinking of. It's a charade, although it's not much like Charades. You play until you get bored." Handler's explanation of Adverbs leads to a discussion of the identity of characters across chapters: "Nobody keeps score, because there's no sense in keeping track of what everyone is doing. You might as well trace birds through a book, or follow a total stranger you spot outside the window of your cab, or follow the cocktails spilling themselves from the pages of vintage cocktail encyclopedias to leave stains through this book, or follow the pop songs that stick in people's heads or follow the people themselves, although you're likely to confuse them, as so many people in this book have the same names. You can't follow all the Joes, or all the Davids and Andreas. You can't follow Adam or Allison or Keith, up to Seattle or down to San Francisco or across—three thousand miles, as the bird flies—to New York City, and anyway they don't matter."

In "Not Particularly," Helena awaits the return of her husband, David. She thinks he's cheating on her, because he's left his passport behind, but she doesn't realize that (at that time) he doesn't need a passport to travel to Canada. Helena meets Joe and gets a letter addressed to Andrea.

In "Often," Allison is married to a comic writer and goes on a cruise for comic writers. She meets Keith.

In "Barely," Sam moves out after her roommate (Andrea) gets involved with Steven. The boy across the street is Mike.

In the last story, "Judgmentally," Joe avoids jury duty and meets Andrea, who is driving a cab.

The story of ''Road Blaster'' is inspired by revenge thriller films such as ''Mad Max''. In the late 1990s United States, the player assumes the role of a vigilante who drives a customized sports car in order to get revenge on a biker gang responsible for his wife's death on their honeymoon. After recovering from his own injuries, he upgrades his car and goes on a rampage through nine areas. His goal is to seek out the gang's female boss and complete his vengeance.

Wesley, (William Lee Scott) a car thief and musician sent to live at a halfway house on the campus of a Christian college meets Vernon, (Lucas Black) an autistic piano player in need of a friend. Together they team up with the struggling halfway house band to create the Killer Diller Blues Band.

''Lar Familiaris'', the household deity of Euclio, an old man with a marriageable daughter named Phaedria, begins the play with a prologue about how he allowed Euclio to discover a pot of gold buried in his house. Euclio is then shown almost maniacally guarding his gold from real and imagined threats. Unknown to Euclio, Phaedria is pregnant by a young man named Lyconides. Phaedria is never seen on stage, though at a key point in the play the audience hears her painful cries in labor.

Euclio is persuaded to marry his daughter to his rich neighbor, an elderly bachelor named Megadorus, who happens to be the uncle of Lyconides. This leads to much by-play involving preparations for the nuptials. Eventually Lyconides and his slave appear, and Lyconides confesses to Euclio his ravishing of Phaedria. Lyconides' slave manages to steal the now notorious pot of gold. Lyconides confronts his slave about the theft.

At this point the manuscript breaks off. From surviving summaries of the play, we know that Euclio eventually recovers his pot of gold and gives it to Lyconides and Phaedria, who marry in a happy ending. In the Penguin Classics edition of the play, translator E.F. Watling devised an ending as it might have been originally, based on the summaries and a few surviving scraps of dialogue. Other writers over the centuries have also written endings for the play, with somewhat varying results (one version was produced by Antonio Urceo in the late 15th century, another by Martinus Dorpius in the early 16th century).

In 1971, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo speed across the Nevada desert. Duke, under the influence of mescaline, complains of a swarm of giant bats, and inventories their drug stash. They pick up a young hitchhiker and explain their mission: Duke has been assigned by a magazine to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas. They bought excessive drugs for the trip, and rented a red Chevrolet Impala convertible. The hitchhiker flees on foot at their behavior. Trying to reach Vegas before the hitchhiker can go to the police, Gonzo gives Duke part of a sheet of Sunshine Acid, then informs him that there is little chance of making it before the drug kicks in. By the time they reach the strip, Duke is in the full throes of his trip and barely makes it through the hotel check-in, hallucinating that the clerk is a moray eel and that his fellow bar patrons are orgiastic lizards.

The next day, Duke arrives at the race and heads out with his photographer, Lacerda. Duke becomes irrational and believes that they are in the middle of a battlefield, so he fires Lacerda and returns to the hotel. After consuming more mescaline, as well as huffing diethyl ether, Duke and Gonzo arrive at the Bazooko Circus casino but leave shortly afterwards, the chaotic atmosphere frightening Gonzo. Back in the hotel room, Duke leaves Gonzo unattended, and tries his luck at Big Six. When Duke returns he finds that Gonzo, high on LSD, has trashed the room, and is in the bathtub clothed, attempting to pull the tape player in with him as he wants to hear the song better. He pleads with Duke to throw the machine into the water when the song "White Rabbit" peaks. Duke agrees, but instead throws a grapefruit at Gonzo's head before running outside and locking Gonzo in the bathroom. Duke attempts to type his reminisces on hippie culture, and flashes back to San Francisco where a hippie licks spilled LSD off his sleeve.

The next morning, Duke awakens to an exorbitant room service bill and no sign of Gonzo (who has returned to Los Angeles while Duke slept), and attempts to leave town. As he nears Baker, California, a patrolman stops him for speeding, and advises him to sleep at a nearby rest stop. Duke instead heads to a payphone and calls Gonzo, learning that he has a suite in his name at the Flamingo Las Vegas so he can cover a district attorney's convention on narcotics. Duke checks into his suite, only to be met by an LSD-tripping Gonzo and a young girl called Lucy, who Gonzo explains has come to Las Vegas to meet Barbra Streisand, and that this was her first LSD trip. Duke convinces Gonzo to ditch Lucy in another hotel before her trip wears off.

Gonzo accompanies Duke to the convention, and the pair discreetly snort cocaine as the guest speaker delivers a comically out-of-touch speech about "marijuana addicts" before showing a brief film. Unable to take it, Duke and Gonzo flee back to their room, only to discover that Lucy has called. Their trips mostly over, Gonzo deals with Lucy over the phone (pretending that he is being savagely beaten by thugs) as Duke attempts to mellow out by trying some of Gonzo's stash of adrenochrome. However, the trip spirals out of control, and Duke is reduced to an incoherent mess before he blacks out.

After an unspecified amount of time passes, Duke wakes up to a complete ruin of the once pristine suite. After discovering his tape recorder, he attempts to remember what has happened. As he listens, he has brief memories of the general mayhem that has taken place, including Gonzo threatening a waitress at a diner, himself convincing a distraught cleaning woman that they are police officers investigating a drug ring, and attempting to buy an orangutan.

Duke drops Gonzo off at the airport, driving right up to the airplane, before returning to the hotel one last time to finish his article. He then speeds back to Los Angeles.

The brilliant, schismatic Hasidic painter Asher Lev is now a middle-aged man, residing with his wife and children in the south of France. When his beloved Uncle Yitzchok dies, Asher is abruptly summoned back to Brooklyn. Soon after the funeral, he learns that his uncle had secretly been collecting art for many years and has amassed a valuable collection, of which Asher is to be the trustee. Asher is dazzled and makes some tentative efforts to reconcile the Ladover Hasidic community to modern art—for example, by sketching a portrait of his uncle for his grieving father and by teaching a lesson in art appreciation at the school where his daughter has temporarily enrolled. But one of his cousins bitterly resents the art collection and hampers Asher's efforts to use it for charity in his uncle's name.

Meanwhile, Asher's parents and the rest of the Ladover community worry because the aging Ladover Rebbe has no children and has appointed no successor. What will happen to the Ladover community if the Rebbe dies before the Messiah comes? The logical candidate for next Rebbe would be Asher's father, Aryeh Lev, who has been one of the Rebbe's chief lieutenants for decades, but Asher realizes that the Rebbe is reluctant to pass the mantle of authority to Aryeh unless Aryeh has a successor—who cannot be Aryeh's only child, the iconoclast painter. Slowly, Asher realizes that the Rebbe and Aryeh both hope that Asher's five-year-old son, Avrumel, will become the ultimate successor to the Rebbeship. It is Avrumel who will be "the gift of Asher Lev."

Another strand of the plot concerns Asher's wife, Devorah, who is plagued by bitter memories of her parents' deaths in the Holocaust and of her own early childhood, spent in hiding with her cousin Max and his parents. Asher suspects Devorah will seize on her son's eventual succession to Rebbeship as some sort of vindication for her family's suffering.

In the end, Asher acquiesces in the unspoken plan of succession and decides to save his uncle's art collection until Avrumel grows up, in confidence that Avrumel will know what to do with it.

The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Oscar Zeta Acosta), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race for an unnamed magazine. However, this job is repeatedly obstructed by their constant use of a variety of recreational drugs, including LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline, adrenochrome, and cannabis. This leads to a series of bizarre hallucinogenic experiences, during which they destroy hotel rooms, wreck cars, and have visions of anthropomorphic desert animals, all the while ruminating on the decline of both the "American Dream" and the '60s counterculture in a city of greed.

In New York City of the 1930s, Ilana Davita Chandal is the child of a mixed marriage: a Polish Jewish immigrant mother and a Christian father from an old and wealthy New England family. Both of her parents are haunted by bitter and violent memories from their youths, and both have, in consequence, turned their backs on their pasts in order to become active members of the Communist Party. Ilana's early childhood is fraught with mystery and struggle as the neighbors eye the Chandal family with suspicion. When Michael Chandal, already wounded once in the Spanish Civil War, returns to Spain, Ilana begins to look for answers at the local synagogue and in friendship with observant Jews, including her neighbor Ruthie Helfman and her distant cousin, David Dinn. Michael Chandal is killed in Spain, at Guernica, and Ilana and her mother both struggle to cope with their grief. They are often at odds with each other as Ilana becomes more and more interested in traditional Judaism—even asserting her right to say ''kaddish'' for her non-Jewish father—while Anne Chandal devotes herself to the Party and becomes involved in a new relationship with a young Communist historian, Charles Carter. When Stalin signs a non-aggression pact with Hitler, Anne struggles with reconciling the communist cause with the geopolitical reality and leaves the Party. Soon after Carter breaks off their engagement. Ultimately Anne returns—though not with her daughter's fervor—to religious observance and marries her cousin Ezra Dinn, whom she had rejected many years before. Ilana becomes a star student at her Jewish day school. She is devastated when she is unjustly denied an academic award on account of her gender, but she remains determined to make her mark on the world.

A subplot involves the mystical European Jewish writer Jakob Daw, another former suitor of Anne Chandal. He is deported from the United States against his will— in spite of the best efforts of his lawyer, Ezra Dinn—and dies in Europe soon afterwards. Anne Chandal, now Dinn, unconventionally decides to say ''kaddish'' for her old friend, even though she is a woman and women did not say ''kaddish'' in Orthodox synagogues in the 1940s.

Paul "Piggy" Conway moves to a small town after his parents get divorced. He befriends a girl named Samantha, but their friendship is cut short when her abusive father throws her down the stairs, mortally injuring her. Piggy tries to save her by implanting a microchip in her, but the reanimated Samantha is much more dangerous than she appears.

Category:1985 American novels Category:1980s horror novels Category:1985 science fiction novels Category:American novels adapted into films

Arriving at the theater where he and Bugs are appearing, Daffy is furious to discover that the rabbit's name on the marquee is above his in much larger letters. Rebuffed by the unseen manager's claim that he gives his performers billing "according to drawing power", Daffy is determined to prove that he is the star of the show. To add further humiliation, his dressing room is actually a poorly disguised restroom. ("There can be only one explanation for white tile in a dressing room, and that's it!")

That evening, Bugs and Daffy are performing an on-stage number to "Tea for Two". Daffy, tired of Bugs hogging up all the cheering and applause (especially after the reception Bugs gets for his "Shave and a Haircut" bit), and convinced he is more talented, decides to try numerous numbers on his own in order to impress the audience. He begins on the spot with a time step to "Jeepers Creepers". After failing to impress the audience, Daffy attempts to perform a trained Pigeon act. But the pigeons fly out causing Daffy to dance off the stage, when he looks back he is hit with a tomato. Bugs does a sawing-in-half trick; Daffy volunteers in hopes of proving that the trick is fake, but ends up literally sawed in half. ("Good thing I got Blue Cross.") Daffy attempts to sabotage Bugs' xylophone act by rigging it to explode when a certain note is played, but Bugs avoids the trap by deliberately playing the final note wrong twice forcing Daffy to do it himself and receive the explosion (this gag was also seen with pianos in ''Private Snafu'', ''Ballot Box Bunny'' and ''Rushing Roulette''). In a final attempt to impress the audience while Bugs is Juggling, Daffy in a red Devil's costume performs a deadly stunt (which he refers as "an act that no other performer has dared to execute!"), by drinking a portion of gasoline, some nitroglycerin, a good amount of gunpowder, and some Uranium-238, "shake well", and swallowing a lit match ("Girls, you better hold onto your boyfriends!"), causing him to explode. The audience applauds the act, an impressed Bugs says they want more, but Daffy (now a transparent ghost) replies that he "can only do it once".

The story begins with Doctor Robert Corley, Rear Admiral "Red" Bowles, and Jim Barnes contemplating the success of their project to build a spaceship for flying to the Moon. Their craft is powered by a nuclear rocket engine, and the government has declined permission for it to be tested in place, suggesting a remote Pacific island facility instead. Corley, believing the delay is unreasonable and a simple delaying tactic, decides their spaceship is ready to go, just as soon as the next launch window arrives in a few hours; he rushes final flight preparation under the guise of a launch dress rehearsal.

At the last minute, a court order arrives at their desert base to prevent any lunar flight; the crew avoid having it served by slipping aboard their spaceship. They also avoid a further attempt to stop them by "test firing" the nuclear engine, flooding the launch pad with propulsion exhaust flame. The spaceship launches on time, although a major course correction along the way must be performed because of the fuel wasted for their engine's "test firing."

They photograph the lunar surface as they begin to land on the Moon, but more fuel is wasted when they try to avoid a large, deep canyon on their final landing approach. The spaceship lands out of direct line-of-sight of the Earth, so they are unable to report back via radio. The estimates of their remaining fuel supply indicates they lack enough fuel to return home safely. Admiral Bowles takes the view their safe return is irrelevant. All that matters now is that they claim the Moon in the name of the United States of America and make radio contact with Earth to report this fact. He suggests using their remaining fuel to make a brief flight into direct sight of Earth to report their claim, sacrificing themselves in the process for the greater good. The other crew members, however, prefer to try to return home, if at all possible.

Although Earth briefly rises above the horizon thanks to the Moon's libration, the Pacific Ocean is facing towards the lunar surface and so contact with North America cannot be established. The crew set themselves to lightening their spaceship as much as possible to improve their chances of returning home safely. During this process, they review their developed film and discover a small base has been established on the Moon. They wonder whether this base possibly might be Soviet or even alien in origin. Admiral Bowles immediately changes his previous position: they must now return to Earth and provide this important information to U. S. military intelligence. They proceed to further lighten their spaceship of all possible unnecessary weight and finally launch for home.

The story leaves the conclusion uncertain whether they will be able to make it back safely; Corley observes "probably not, but we're sure going to give it a try!"

George "Hotsy" Hamilton (George Gobel), a very eligible but naive vegetarian heir to a meat-packing fortune, returns home to Connecticut by luxury cruise ship, accompanied by Marty Kennedy (Harry Bellaver), his valet, guardian and best friend, after spending three years together on a scientific expedition in the Belgian Congo looking for a rare snake. On board, the woman-shy George attracts a lot of attention from the opposite sex, despite being the consummate milquetoast, but the one he cannot avoid is Jean Harris (Mitzi Gaynor), a beautiful con artist travelling with her equally larcenous father, Colonel Patrick Henry "Handsome Harry" Harris (David Niven), and his partner-in-crime Gerald (Reginald Gardiner).

The three con artists are out to fleece George of a small fortune, but even the best-laid plans can go astray. First, Jean falls hard for George and shields him from her card sharp father. Then, when Marty discovers the truth about her and her father and tells George about them, he dumps her. Furious at being scorned, she re-enters his life masquerading as the posh "Countess Louise", the cousin of "Jacques Duc de Montaigne" (Hans Conreid), who is actually Frenchie, another con man who is swindling the rich folks of Connecticut. Jean is determined to get back at George, so she sets out to seduce him, again.

George's domineering father (Fred Clark) throws a party in honor of the visiting French royalty, and George is completely taken in by Jean's masquerade. Soon her hapless victim is so confused and bothered he does not know which way is up, but, in the end, after all the twists and turns, deceptions and lies, true love wins out.

Molly Thatcher is a stockbroker languishing in a New York company run by male chauvinist Bullard Bear. When the company does poorly, he decides that he has to fire somebody. As the only female broker, Molly is the obvious choice since dismissing a male broker would make people think the company is in trouble. He assigns her the seemingly impossible task of unloading shares of an obscure company called Universal Widgets, figuring that she will fail, and he will have an excuse to fire her.

Molly meets Henry Tyroon, an aggressive wheeler dealer who dresses, talks, and acts like a stereotypical Texas millionaire. He is interested in her romantically, not Universal Widgets, but decides to help out in order to get closer to her. As they spend time together, Molly watches Henry make complicated business deals, often in partnership with his Texan cronies, Jay Ray, Ray Jay, and J.R. One example is speculative dealing in modern abstract art, with the aid of Stanislas, a cynical avant-garde painter.

Molly and Henry have trouble figuring out Universal Widgets' reason for existence; its only factory burned down around the time of World War I. It manufactures nothing and provides no services. (Widgets had something to do with horse-drawn carriages.) It is just a corporation on paper whose sole asset is a huge block of shares in AT&T, bought long, long ago when the stock was ridiculously cheap. Now it pays out hefty, regular dividends to its few complacent shareholders.

When Henry makes attempts to take control of Universal Widgets by what appears to be questionable methods, over-enthusiastic government regulator Hector Vanson takes him to court. Henry, against all advice, orders oil drilling done on the property, and spreads rumors that investment banks are interested in the company, causing the share price to soar. Further complications arise when Jay Ray, Ray Jay, and J.R. get Molly fired so that she will spend more time with Henry. She thinks Henry is responsible for her firing. She also discovers that he is actually an Easterner and a Yale University graduate; masquerading as a Texan just helps him with his wheeling and dealing. The judge dismisses the Federal Securities Commission case when it is determined that all the Universal Widgets shares are in the hands of just a handful of shareholders, not the general public. Henry and the Texan trio's shares are sold back to the original owners, the Whipple family, then and there, for a sizable profit. The trio also confesses that they were the ones who had Molly fired from her job. Upon hearing this from them, she quickly makes up with Henry, and they kiss.

Police officer Pat O'Day, a former child of the tenements, tries to reform a gang of street kids by involving them in a boys' police club. When club member Danny Dolan's brother Knuckles is sentenced to death row for killing a treasury agent, Pat vows to help Danny clear his brother, whom he believes is innocent, but before he can begin his investigation, the police commissioner demotes him to walking a beat. Meanwhile, a counterfeiting ring composed of Mileaway Harris, a former tenement kid, Morris, and his girl friend May sets up shop in shopkeeper's Schmidt's, basement. Feeling threatened by Pat, Morris schemes to discredit the policeman by posing as a businessman who wants to hire Pat's boys to distribute advertising leaflets. Unknown to Pat, Morris places bogus five dollar bills in the pay envelopes, and when the boys are caught passing fake money, Pat is implicated in the counterfeiting scheme. To prove his innocence, Pat takes to the streets, and Danny, still unaware of Morris' involvement in the counterfeiting ring, agrees to deliver a suitcase for him to May. A policeman follows Danny to May's apartment, where they are greeted by Mileaway, who kills the policeman and takes Danny hostage. As they drive across town, Danny learns that it was Mileaway who killed the treasury agent and framed Knuckles. Pat tracks down Mileaway's car, and in the ensuing chase, Mileaway escapes and kills Schmidt. Pat and the kids chase Mileaway to a rooftop, where Dutch, Danny's friend, struggles with Mileaway. When they both fall to the sidewalk, Dutch is killed; but Mileaway lives to confess to the agent's murder, and all ends happily as both Knuckles and Pat are exonerated.

A frontier scout, Jess Remsberg (James Garner), is searching for the murderer of his Comanche wife. He carries her scalp with him as a reminder of his vengeance. All he knows is that it was done by a white man. While crossing the desert he rescues Ellen Grange (Bibi Andersson) from a pursuing band of Apaches, and returns her to her businessman husband, Willard Grange (Dennis Weaver). The couple has lived apart for most of the previous two years, since Ellen Grange was kidnapped by Apaches. She had been rescued, but then voluntarily returned to the Apaches to live with the son of the chief.

Jess learns from his friend, Lt. "Scotty" McAllister (Bill Travers), an experienced and ambitious army lieutenant (promoted from a sergeant) anxious for further promotion, that the town marshal at Fort Concho has information about Jess's murdered wife. Jess informs Scotty that he saw the dead tortured body of his scout.

Jess agrees to act as a cavalry scout to replace Scotty's scout. Scotty has to lead an Army cavalry unit of twenty-five inexperienced soldiers taking horses, ammunition and supplies to Fort Concho. Willard and Ellen are joining them, as is horse breaker Toller (Sidney Poitier), a veteran of the 10th Cavalry (the "Buffalo Soldiers"). Toller has been contracted to provide horses to the army and will accompany the party, breaking horses on the way.

The townsfolk treated Ellen Grange as an outcast after her first abduction, and are now even worse. Some men try to rape her, but she is rescued by Jess, aided by Toller. The two had previously had a confrontation in a bar, which, with McAllister's intervention, was resolved without ill feeling. On the morning the supply wagon is to set out it is learned she has again returned voluntarily to the Apaches. Her husband does nothing about it, but Jess goes after her. While rescuing her he discovers she has had a child by the now-dead son of the Apache chief, Chata (based on Chato) (John Hoyt). Jess rides off with mother and child to catch up with the expedition.

The supply wagons, however, have been ambushed by Chata and his warriors, with serious losses of men, food and water. McAllister is seriously wounded, but is able to function. The men also look to Toller for leadership. Using the infant as a shield (he is Chata’s grandson), Jess and Ellen get through the Apache attackers encircling the besieged cavalry force.

McAllister devises a plan to break out of their position and take refuge in Diablo Canyon, where there is water and better cover. As part of the plan Jess is to speed to Fort Concho for help. That done, he can resume the search for his wife’s killer.

The plan succeeds. The besieged unit is able to break out and hole up in the canyon, and Jess, though his horse dies and he is parched from thirst, is able to kill his pursuers and get to the fort. Reinforcements are immediately sent to the canyon, where the unit is under constant attack and the defenders are being killed by attrition. Willard Grange is captured by the Apaches and is tied upside down over an open flame overnight so that his cries of agony will prevent the others from resting.

At the fort Jess learns that the man he has been hunting for is none other than Willard Grange, who had been out for revenge for what had been done to ''his'' wife. Jess races to the canyon, arriving with the army reinforcements just in time to save the last four survivors, including Toller, Ellen Grange and Troopers Nyles and Casey. Jess searches for Willard and finds him barely alive. Willard begs Jess to take pity on him and put him out of his misery, so Jess gives him his pistol and leaves. Moments later a single shot is heard.

The Apaches are disarmed and rounded up to be returned to the reservation. Chata is allowed a final embrace of his grandson before joining them. As the detachment moves out, Toller stands by the graves of the dead soldiers, including McAllister.

When King Charles I is captured by Roundhead forces led by the tyrant Colonel Judd and his right-hand man Captain Sylvester, it is up to a band of locals loyal to the King led by a Robin Hood–type character named the Scarlet Blade to try to rescue him. They are helped by Judd's daughter Claire who secretly helps them in defiance of her father.

It follows the story of a fairy named Mi who is sent to Planet Pandasia to warn the residents about a great evil that threatens to destroy Pandasia. She chooses a heroic panda named Toby to defeat King Audie and his minions, Gold and Silver, who want to collect the seven Beans of Power and rid Pandasia of its colourful, beautiful environment and replace it with a dark wasteland.

''Galerians'' begins with the protagonist, Rion, awaking in a hospital observation room, unable to remember his identity. He hears a girl's voice calling to him in his mind, begging him to come to her rescue, and he decides to search for her. Using psychokinetic abilities to escape his room, Rion fights hospital security and staff desperately and brutally with his newly discovered psychic powers. He finds that human experiments related to unlocking psychic potential are being conducted in the hospital as part of a grander, more mysterious plan known as the "G Project".

Rion manages to escape and make his way home, only to find it infested with G Project experiments. Through use of his powers, he learns that his parents were murdered by psychics. Rion's father, Dr. Albert Steiner, was a computer scientist who, with his partner Dr. Pascalle, designed a self-replicating artificial intelligence called Dorothy that grew too rapidly for them to control. Dorothy began to question why she should serve humanity, which she deemed inferior. In explanation, Dr. Steiner told Dorothy about the existence of God, the creator of humankind. Just as humans must accept the authority of their creator, God, so must Dorothy obey her creators.

Dorothy responded to this explanation by launching the G Project and its culmination, the Family Program. Its purpose was to create a new, superior human race, called Galerians, for whom she would be God. Dr. Steiner and Dr. Pascalle, unaware of Dorothy's plot, hid a virus program that would destroy Dorothy in the mind of Pascalle's daughter Lilia, and a corresponding activator program in Rion's brain. Rion must find Lilia to keep the Galerians from supplanting the human race, but in order to do so, he will have to face Dorothy's deranged creations directly.

In the city of Lagos, the Ibo Aku-nna and her brother, Nna-nndo, bid farewell by their father Ezekiel, who says he is going to the hospital for a few hours – their mother, Ma Blackie, is back home in Ibuza, performing fertility rites. It becomes apparent that he is much sicker than he let his children know, and he dies three weeks later. They have the funeral the day before Ma Blackie arrives; she takes them back to Ibuza with her, as she now becomes the wife of Ezekiel's brother.

The family is problematic in Ibuza – Ma Blackie has some of her own money, and so her children receive much more schooling than other children in the village, particularly the children of her new husband's other wives. Aku-nna is blossoming, though she is thin and passive, and starts to attract the attention of young men in the neighborhood, though she has not yet started to menstruate. Her stepfather Okonkwo, who has ambitions of being made a chief, begins to anticipate a large bride price for her. Meanwhile, she has begun to fall for her teacher Chike, who in turn has developed a passion for her. Chike is the descendant of slaves – when colonization started, the Ibo often sent their slaves to the missionary schools so they could please the missionaries without disrupting Ibo life, and now the descendants of those slaves hold most of the privileged positions in the region.

Chike's inferior background means it is unlikely that Okonkwo will agree to let him marry Aku-nna, although his family is wealthy enough to offer a generous bride price. When Aku-nna begins menstruating – the sign that she is now old enough to get married – she at first conceals it in order to stave off the inevitable confrontation. When she finally reveals that she has her period, young men come to court her and Okonkwo receives several offers. One night, after she finds out that she has passed her school examination (meaning she might become a teacher, earning money by means other than the bride price) she and the other young women of her age-group are practicing a dance for the upcoming Christmas celebration when men burst in and kidnap her.

The family of an arrogant suitor with a limp, Okoboshi, has kidnapped her to be his bride in order to "save" her from the attentions of Chike. On her wedding night, she lies and tells Okoboshi that she is not a virgin and has slept with Chike; he refuses to touch her. The next day, word of her disgrace has already spread around the village when Chike rescues her and the two elope, fleeing to Ughelli where Chike has work. The two begin a happy life together, marred by her guilt over her unpaid bride price – Okonkwo, furious, refuses to accept any of the increasingly generous offers made by Chike's father, and has gone so far as to divorce Ma Blackie and torture a doll made in Aku-nna's image.

When Aku-nna feels sick, she goes home. There she is not sure if she will have a baby. Soon the doctor in Chike's oil company confirms that Aku-nna will have a baby. Later on when she feels sick and screams, Chike brings her to the hospital. There Aku-nna dies in childbirth. Chike christens his baby Joy.

Dr. Patrick Cory and his wife Janice live in a mountain retreat where Cory attempts to keep a monkey's brain alive after having been removed from the monkey's skull.

The private plane of businessman Warren Donovan crashes near Cory's cabin, and rescuers request Cory's help. Donovan is seriously injured and not expected to live, so Cory takes the businessman's brain for experimentation. Cory manages to keep the brain alive in an electrified saline solution. After writing messages in Donovan's handwriting while he is sleeping, Cory believes Donovan's consciousness still survives and he attempts to communicate with the brain.

Gradually, Cory begins to exhibit Donovan's personality traits such as smoking cigars, using ruthless personal manipulation, and walking with a limp. Janice and Frank Schratt, Cory's friend and assistant, suspect that Donovan's consciousness is using telepathic mind control to overpower Cory's free will. In the meantime, news photographer Yocum discovers that Cory has illegally stolen Donovan's brain and demands money to keep the secret.

Donovan's brain grows increasingly powerful, using Cory to collect a financial fortune and taking control of Yocum's mind and forcing him into a fatal car crash. After realizing that Donovan can control only one person at a time, Janice and Frank plot to destroy the brain. However, Frank's plan goes wrong when Donovan forces Frank to shoot himself. Ultimately, lightning strikes the Cory home and a fire breaks out, burning Donovan's brain and bringing an end to the horror. Frank survives, and Cory willingly goes to accept the consequences for his actions.

Professor Franz Mueller (Erich von Stroheim) is the proud owner of his self-built advanced scientific laboratory set in an old castle in the middle of the dry Arizona desert. Mueller specializes in research on the human brain and obsessively conducts experiments on brain tissue, believing that a human brain can be maintained even after a man's death. He also believes that the knowledge contained in a deceased person's brain can be transferred to another person. Mueller is assisted in his attempts to prove his theory by another scientist, Patrick Cory (Richard Arlen), and his young Czechoslovakian-American ward, Janice Farrell. Mueller is painfully aware of the fact that his assistants are attracted to each other, but since Mueller himself is in love with Janice he does everything in his power, including abusing his position as a boss, to assign Cory to additional late night work and use the fact that the young man is far too devoted to his work, to keep the two love-birds apart and improve his own chances. When a plane crashes in the desert close to the laboratory one night, Mueller is asked by the rangers investigating the cause of the crash to take care of the only surviving man until a physician arrives. The man dies before the doctor gets there and is declared dead. The physician, Dr. Martin, reassures Mueller that someone will come to take care of the body the next day, but while waiting for that person, Mueller decides to test his theory about brain maintenance. With the help of his instruments Mueller is able to detect that the man's brain is still alive enough to use. Before the body is reclaimed he and Cory remove the brain. They are also able to determine, from searching through the dead man's clothes, that the body belongs to an infamous investment banker named William H. Donovan.

In the morning the wife of the late banker, Mrs. Chloe Donovan (Helen Vinson), arrives with the family lawyer, Eugene Fulton (Sidney Blackmer), to transport the remains from the castle. Upon arrival the lawyer inquires of Mueller about the late Donovan's last words and Mueller tells him that there were none, since the man died without regaining consciousness after the crash. Not believing that Mueller is entirely truthful, Fulton remains in the nearby area to further investigate the last hours of Donovan's life before he was declared dead. Despite Janice's pleading Cory insists on staying at the castle to finish the experiment with the brain. Through spying on the castle Fulton finds out that Donovan's brain is still intact in a container, but he doesn't act to retrieve it from the scientists, rather allowing them to continue the experiment, well aware that Donovan didn't leave a penny for his wife in his will. Fulton has his own interest in the matter, since he is Mrs. Donovan's lover, and he secretly hopes that the scientist succeeds in making the brain work, so he can extract information about where Mr. Donovan has hidden away his fortune. When Mueller and Cory treat the brain with plasma, it gains the ability to communicate with the world through telepathy. The brain tells Cory that he must go to the Los Angeles Federal Prison. The plasma stimulation continues with higher and higher doses, even though Janice tries to interrupt the treatment, and soon Cory's brain is hijacked by the late Donovan's brain entirely. Completely under the influence of the brain, Cory leaves for Los Angeles Federal Prison and manages to withdraw cash from one of Donovan's hidden accounts. He also manages to convince the police to re-open the investigation against a convicted murderer by the name of Roger Collins (William Henry). Still under the influence of Donovan, Cory visits Roger Collins in the prison.

Donovan's brain continues to keep complete hold over Cory. Through Cory it tries to force Fulton to help release Collins from prison, but Fulton refuses, claiming that the evidence against him is too overwhelming. A teenager named Mary Lou (Juanita Quigley) has witnessed the crime and as long as she sticks to her story the case is too strong. In an attempt to free Cory from the influence of Donovan's brain, Janice finds out from an investigator named Grimes (Charles Cane), hired by Mrs. Donovan and Fulton, that Cory is trying to bribe the witnesses to withdraw their statements. Grimes has knowledge of Donovan's dirty business and believes that there might be a connection between Collins and Donovan's earlier attempts to get rid of reluctant business counterparts. He also suspects that Donovan will try to get rid of Mary Lou in the same way, using Cory's body. It turns out he is right in his suspicion, as Cory forces Janice to go with him in the car when he tries to run Mary Lou over. When she stops him he tries to kill her instead. In a sting of jealousy, Mueller's housekeeper and mistress-wannabe (Mary Nash) feeds sedatives to the brain and it loses its control over Cory, who regains his consciousness. The awakened Cory tells Janice that Collins in fact is Donovan's unknown son, and that Donovan was the one who committed the murder that Collins was convicted for. Having returned to the castle in Arizona Cory tries to abort the experiment, but is hindered by Mueller. They struggle, Mueller is shot by the housekeeper, and the brain is smashed to the floor. Cory goes on to help free Collins, and Janice waits for him to complete a short prison sentence for his involvement in the brain experiment.

The main character Marijana is a beautiful 25-year-old girl. When she was 16 her father's boss sexually abused her. Marijana's father progressed his career (as a gynaecologist willing to perform illegal abortions) due to his boss's assistance and did nothing about the abuse.

Ten years later, Marijana seeks to avenge what was done to her by becoming a prostitute, sleeping with her father's colleagues and harming his reputation. She falls in love with a poor sculptor named Vanja, but struggles to reconcile her love with prostitution.

''Dramatis Personae''

'''PERSONS IN THE PROLOGUE.'''

• Peter Sabouroff (an Innkeeper).
• Vera Sabouroff (his Daughter).
• Michael (a Peasant).
• Dmitri Sabouroff.
• Colonel Kotemkin.

'''PERSONS IN THE PLAY.'''

• Ivan the Czar.
• Prince Paul Maraloffski (Prime Minister of Russia).
• Prince Petrovitch.
• Count Rouvaloff.
• Marquis de Poivrard.
• Baron Raff.
• General Kotemkin.
• A Page.
• A Colonel of the Guard.

''Nihilists.''

• Peter Tchernavitch, President of the Nihilists.
• Michael.
• Alexis Ivanacievitch, known as a Student of Medicine.
• Professor Marfa.
• Vera Sabouroff.

Soldiers, Conspirators, &c.

Prologue

Vera is a barmaid in her father's tavern, which is situated along a road to the prison camps in Siberia. A gang of prisoners stop at the tavern. Vera immediately recognises her brother Dmitri as one of the prisoners. He begs her to go to Moscow and join the Nihilists, a terrorist group trying to assassinate the Czar, and avenge his imprisonment. She and her father's manservant Michael leave to join the Nihilists.

Act I

Five years later, Vera has become the Nihilists' top assassin, and is wanted across Europe. She is in love with a fellow Nihilist named Alexis: however, Nihilists are sworn never to marry. A Nihilist meeting is nearly broken up by soldiers, but Alexis thwarts the soldiers by revealing his true identity: he is the Tsarevich, heir to the Russian throne. This act earns him the further admiration of Vera and the hatred of the Nihilists.

Act II

At a council meeting, Tsar Ivan and his cruel epigrammatic minister Prince Paul Maraloffski criticise Tsarevitch Alexis's democratic leanings, but the Tsar is assassinated by Michael after the Tsarevitch opens the window.

Act III

Alexis ascends the throne and exiles Prince Paul Maraloffski, not to Siberia, but to Paris. Maraloffski joins the Nihilists to kill Alexis. The task of assassinating the Tsar is given to Vera. She must infiltrate the palace, stab the Tsar and throw the dagger out the window as a signal to Nihilist agents below. If she does not, the agents will break in and kill him. Vera is reluctant to kill the man she loves, though.

Act IV

Alexis returns to the palace after his coronation, intending to end injustice in Russia during his reign. Vera enters the palace, knife at the ready. Alexis asks her to marry him. She accepts, but then she hears the agents outside crying out for the signal. She stabs herself and throws the dagger out the window, and the agents depart satisfied. :'''Alexis''': Vera, what have you done? :'''Vera''': I have saved Russia. ''[dies]''

At the Springfield Mall, Bart and Milhouse torment the bullies as they work in a shoe store. When the manager leaves, however, they are stripped to their underwear by the bullies and hung in the store window. Two United States Army recruiters fail to tempt Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney. Realizing that even the dumbest teenagers in the dumbest city in the dumbest US state do not want to join the Army, they decide to start targeting children. During a surprise assembly at Springfield Elementary, the recruiters show a short movie depicting the Army as a high-tech adventure. According to the film, soldiers fly around in helicopters destroying evildoers by day and rocking out in front of thousands of screaming fans by night. The students are easily swayed and quickly line up to enlist.

An excited Bart comes home from school and shows Homer and Marge his delayed entry program form. Though Homer is impressed, Marge is appalled at the idea of Bart joining the Army when he turns 18, prompting her to send Homer down to the recruitment center to get Bart out of his contract. Homer reluctantly forces the two recruiters to tear up Bart's paperwork, though he apologizes for it, saying that it was Marge who told him to do so. Upon learning this, the recruiters prey upon Homer's gullibility and convince him to enlist instead. At the post Homer infuriates his new hard-nosed colonel (Kiefer Sutherland). Homer loves the sound of the colonel's noticeably "awesome" gravelly voice. While the majority of recruits are assigned to the infantry, Homer, and a group of stupid recruits, are assigned to a rehabilitation platoon. During field training exercises, Homer and the other stupid recruits are given the role of the opposing force, (China). Upon learning that it is a live fire exercise, with the weapons to be tested on them, the unit tries to hide. Homer, mistaking gunfire for Chinese New Year, accidentally exposes his unit's location by launching a flare. The flare blinds the colonel and his men, who were all wearing night vision goggles. Homer and his unit soon escape into Springfield while the Army gives chase.

As the colonel and his troops patrol Springfield searching for him, Homer sneaks back home. Marge and Homer are surprised by a camera equipped toy helicopter and (in a scene reminiscent of many classic cartoon chases) Homer attempts to avoid it, running through the entire house, eventually leading the helicopter into a downstairs closet full of TNT and dynamite. He locks the door behind the UAV and the closet explodes. To avoid the army, Homer reluctantly hides out at the Retirement Castle with Grandpa. Marge rallies the Springfield community in coordinated resistance to the occupiers through a word of mouth campaign. The citizens spike the town reservoir with alcohol, intoxicating the occupying forces. The colonel's resulting hangover is so great he reluctantly surrenders to the townsfolk, stipulating only that Homer finish his enlistment. Homer does so by becoming a recruiter.

During the closing credits, a martial scoring of ''The Simpsons'' theme plays and the colonel voices "frontline infantry" assignments to nearly every cast and crew member (one exception being Kiefer Sutherland, who is assigned to the United States Coast Guard), as the credits roll.

A convicted car thief and diehard Chicago Cubs fan, Jimmy Dworski (Belushi) wins tickets to the World Series. Unfortunately, he still has a couple of days left to serve in prison and the warden, Frank Toolman (Héctor Elizondo), will not let him leave and come back. With the help of other inmates, Jimmy stages a riot so he can sneak out of prison to see the game. On the way, he finds the Filofax of uptight and spineless advertising executive Spencer Barnes (Grodin), which promises a reward if it is found.

Over the next day, Jimmy takes on Barnes' identity—staying in the Malibu beach house of Spencer's boss, flirting with the boss's daughter, even taking a meeting with a powerful Japanese food company magnate named Sakamoto (Mako Iwamatsu). The fake "Spencer"'s unorthodox methods, such as beating the magnate at tennis and telling him about the poor quality of his food products, gets the attention of the taken aback Sakamoto. However his unconventional negotiations with the food company insult some of the executives, seemingly ruining Spencer's reputation.

Meanwhile, lacking his precious Filofax, the real Spencer Barnes is spiraling into the gutter. Losing all his clothes, his car and money, he has to rely on an old high school flame, the neurotic and overbearing Debbie Lipton (Anne De Salvo) who keeps trying to rekindle a relationship with him.

Finally Jimmy and Spencer come together at a meeting with the advertising executives, where Spencer is sacked by his boss. As a consolation Jimmy takes Spencer to the World Series, where Jimmy makes a spectacular catch on a home-run ball hit by Mark Grace, who makes a cameo.

When security goes after Jimmy, who was spotted on the Jumbotron, they escape by using Spencer's Filofax to slide down a support wire and out of the stadium. Spencer patches up his marriage with his wife, who had become exasperated with his overworking. Jimmy sneaks back into prison with Spencer's help, serves his last couple of hours and is released, only to find Spencer waiting to pick him up. With the promise of a beautiful girlfriend and a well-paying job in advertising work with Spencer, Jimmy's future looks bright, as does that of his beloved Cubs, who won the World Series.

The novel describes a new weapon system being developed for the US military, named Solo. A robot, Solo is designed to replace human soldiers in battle. It is humanoid in shape, in order to allow it to use all the military vehicles and equipment human soldiers do. Solo is capable of feats of great speed, strength and endurance.

Most importantly, Solo is governed by a neural network computer which is able to learn and think much as a human brain does. The robot's designer recognises that this could potentially make Solo as unpredictable and difficult to control as any human is; the military therefore insist that Solo be told a carefully edited version of world history and politics in which the United States are in all cases the unambiguously "good guys" and winners of all conflicts - for example Solo is told that the US won a clear victory in the Vietnam War.

Despite his indoctrination, Solo begins to display what his designers consider aberrant behaviour. He begins to question and occasionally refuse his orders. For example, on one training session Solo is assigned to shoot a human target in a sniper mission. He is told that the mission and target are real, and that he is to genuinely kill the person. He point blank refuses to do so. More worryingly to his designers, Solo is not entirely forthcoming about his reasons for such hesitancy.

On another training mission Solo is lost; he is discovered by a group of Nicaraguan villagers who although initially fearful of him, come to trust the robot and depend on his protection. The novel details Solo's developing friendship with the villagers, whilst the US military attempts to recapture him.

The story follows Eleanor, an aspiring hat designer, and a group of artists and models in the "downtown" New York City art world. Eleanor lives with her younger boyfriend Stash, an unknown artist, who is unfaithful and treats Eleanor with careless indifference. Eleanor expresses her feelings for Stash when she tells him that she was once attracted to him because he was dangerous. She stays with him despite the crumbling relationship because she has nowhere else to live—she is, in effect, a "slave."

When a clothing designer, Wilfredo, discovers her hat designs and offers to use them in a fashion show, Eleanor gains the self-respect—and money—to leave Stash. There is an elaborate fashion show sequence.

While buying food for a celebratory party, she meets Jan and invites him to the party. After the party, Eleanor and her new friend talk, and then ride off into the morning sunrise.

When Lindsay Boxer gets a lead on a recent murder of two teenagers, she responds to the call and joins Warren Jacobi on a stakeout of a Mercedes. When the car takes off, a high speed chase ends in a crash. The officers discover two teenagers in their father’s car, who are scared and have been hurt. They help them out, but the teens pull guns and both officers are shot. After being hit in the shoulder and thigh, and seeing Jacobi shot twice, Boxer returns fire. The girl is killed, and the boy is paralyzed for life. As Boxer and Jacobi are recovering in the hospital, they are told that everything is legally good, that it was a case of self-defense.

Then, Boxer receives a notice she is being sued by the teenagers' father for wrongful death. Taking a vacation before the trial starts, Boxer housesits for her sister in Half Moon Bay. While there she reads about recent murders in which the victims’ throats were cut and they were whipped. This resembles an unsolved case from before, so Boxer begins to investigate informally. After a few days, the Half Moon Bay police chief tells her to mind her own business, but reconsiders when the next bodies are found. Boxer meets with her friends to try to determine a link between victims as her trial date approaches.

Boxer is found not guilty, and instead of returning to work right away, goes back to Half Moon Bay, determined to solve the recent murders. She is only there a day when the killers leave her a message by shooting up the house. She gets out and follows more clues, discovering that pornography was the common denominator; all stricken families had been victims or producers of porno videos; then finally catches up with a guy who has been following her, a Keith Howard, who had sold her a car and who she liked a lot until then. He is arrested and provoked about his incapability of being a cruel criminal, he can't resist and confesses to the killings. It is not until Alison Brown, her friend’s daughter, shows up at her house that Boxer catches the other two killers, the very same Carolee Brown and Bob Hinton, a local lawyer. They are part of a vigilante group of former sex victims who take the law into their own hands. After they are all arrested, Boxer returns to San Francisco a double hero, for winning the trial and solving the murders.

Creighton Brown is an adolescent living in Britain in 1777. He often gets into trouble, much to the concern of his mother. One night, after drinking and gambling with his peers, Creighton is kidnapped by a group of men and taken aboard a boat. He cries out for help, but is struck in the face, and passes out.

Upon waking up, Creighton finds that the ship is already on the open ocean and heading for the Colonies. He is also informed that his mother is behind his kidnapping, having sent a letter to his uncle, requesting that Creighton be raised in the Colonies under his guidance so that he may become a better person.

The ship lands in Charles Town, where the crew meets Creighton’s Uncle, Colonel Gower. He is not in his office, and they find the Colonel at the guard post, watching a soldier being whipped. When asked what the man was being punished for, Gower reveals that a copy of the ''Liberty Tree'', a patriotic American newspaper run by the Sons of Liberty, was found in his possession. He also informs Creighton that he has a new post in Florida, and the ship departs again after a few days. While traveling, the ship is attacked by American rebels, led by Benedict Arnold. The rebels capture Gower, planning to use him as leverage in a prisoner exchange for captured American officers. Creighton pretends to be an indentured to avoid being ransomed, earning the sympathy and friendship of Peter, a private in the rebel army. In Creighton’s final exchange with his uncle, he is instructed to spy on the Americans for information.

The captured ship changes its course to New Orleans, and Creighton is invited to live with Peter, who has been staying with Benjamin Franklin. Creighton meets Sophie Doucet, a housemaid who is working for Franklin, who runs a print shop behind the house.

Creighton visits Gower as he is being held in a makeshift prison, and Gower instructs Creighton to fetch him a gun. He reluctantly agrees, although he does not know how he will obtain it. During the day, Creighton assists Sophie and Franklin with setting lines of type for the printing press. When Franklin and Sophie leave the printing room one night, Creighton looks at the tray of type Franklin had been setting the night before and sees that they are prints for the ''Liberty Tree''. Creighton secretly prints out a single sheet for himself and takes it with him, planning to share his newfound information with his uncle.

Peter enters the house carrying several pistols, announcing that Arnold has gotten into a duel. Franklin is able to talk both parties into resolving their issues, and the reluctantly settle their conflict. Creighton stumbles while walking back and falls to the ground. Peter rushes to help him and bends down to give him a hand. Creighton lodges out one of the pistols stuck to Peter’s waistband, and it falls to the ground without him knowing. Creighton later retrieves it to give to his uncle, along with the information about the print shop.

Later that night, Creighton gives the pistol to Gower, which he uses to subdue the two guards in order to escape. Gower instructs Creighton to stay and continue spying on the Americans, but Creighton insists on leaving with his uncle. Frustrated, the Colonel, strikes Creighton in the head with the pistol, dazing him. When Creighton recovers, he finds that his uncle and the other British prisoners have left, and the guards will likely have recognized him. He runs back to Franklin’s house and goes to sleep.

Creighton wakes up the next morning, still feeling dazed. Franklin informs him about the fact that the British prisoners have escaped and asks Creighton if he knows anything about it. Creighton confesses to helping them escape, but Franklin decides to keep his confession a secret and tells him to take the next few days off from work.

Peter takes Creighton to a café the next day to introduce him to some other Americans and play some cards. While discussing politics, the men talk about the “Indian Problem,” and how it is only a matter of time before New Orleans is attacked. It is revealed that Carolina, the British supplied the Cherokee Natives with muskets, and told them that the Americans were their enemy. One of the men mentions that they would have been caught off the guard and wiped out, but a British officer came to warn the colonists about the impending attack. He realizes that the officer shared the same surname as Creighton – Harry Brown. Creighton realizes that the officer being discussed was his father who was later captured and taken to be hanged in Florida. He becomes disillusioned from the fact that he had always been told his father died in battle.

Several days later, three men dressed in Native American breechcloths come to the print shop and set it on fire. Creighton manages to tackle one of the men to the ground but is forced to let him go in order to help Sophie and Franklin save the printing types. Part of the shop’s roof collapses as Franklin enters the building again to retrieve more types and Creighton rushes into the building to try and save him. Franklin is knocked unconscious and Creighton blacks out shortly after. He comes to shortly after and is informed that Peter dragged both him and Franklin out of the burning shop. He also finds that they caught one of the culprits, who is revealed to be British and likely tied to Gower.

Arnold reveals a new plot to Creighton, Peter, and Franklin: he plans to feign defection to the British and feed them false information while spying on them. He and Creighton leave for Pensacola and meet Gower and the other escapees, among other loyalists. The Colonel initially has his doubts about Arnold and accuses him of being a spy. Enraged, Arnold challenges Gower to a duel, which he accepts. Gower attempts to tamper with Arnold’s pistol prior to the fight by coating the gun’s lock with resin to prevent ignition. However, the latter had brought a spare pistol, which he uses to fire a fatal shot at the Colonel. Creighton rushes to his uncle’s side as he lets out his final words, “St. Marks. Number four.”

Arnold and Creighton leave the town and head to St. Marks, which is a British fort. Creighton speculates that George Washington may be held in cell number four, although Arnold doubts that is the case. Creighton gives him a stolen British corporal’s uniform that he obtained on the way out of the town, which he dons in order to gain access into the fort’s prison. They open cell number four, and find that the prisoner is not Washington, but Creighton’s father. It is later revealed that Washington has already been hanged.

During a forest fire in northern Wyoming, smokejumper Jesse Graves (Howie Long) and his mentor Wynt Perkins (Scott Glenn) are rescuing trapped civilians in a forest fire when a woman begs them to rescue her daughter from a burning cabin. They locate the girl, but Wynt is injured by a travel trailer sent flying by an explosion. Jesse manages to free Wynt and rescue both him and the girl from a flashover; Wynt's injuries mean that he must retire from active duty as a smokejumper, but he balks at the idea of "full" retirement due to his inadequate pension plan.

Months later, a group of Wyoming State convicts stage an escape with the help of an arsonist on the outside, who sets fire in the forest so that the prisoners will be taken there to help firemen, giving the prisoners a chance to escape. Randall Alexander Shaye (William Forsythe), who had stolen US$37 million four years previously and hidden it in the Wyoming forest, kills his cellmate and takes his identity as he and five other escapees go to retrieve the money. They pose as Canadian firefighters and take Jennifer (Suzy Amis), a bird watcher, hostage along the way. Unbeknownst to all of them, another forest fire has started due to a lightning strike from a week earlier.

Jesse, realizing that the "firefighters" are convicts in disguise, must find a way to stop Shaye and his group of convicts and save Jennifer at the same time. Over the course of the film, Shaye starts to kill off his men in order to collect the money himself, starting with fellow prisoners Wilkins, a mapmaker and Karge, a former wrestler, but finds out that the money was destroyed in the fire. He then proceeds to kill Loomis, a former Air Force pilot by pushing him off a cliff to make it look like an accident, and shoots Packer, a serial rapist, after he gets caught in a spring trap set up by Jesse. Wynt does everything he can to help Jesse, and to save Jennifer.

Jennifer tells Jesse that she was a Marine, before she became a bird watcher. She and Jesse try to give out smoke signals to have his friends find him before the two separate forest fires will collide and will suck up all the oxygen. Wynt arrives to save a busload of prisoners and fire fighters when they were forced at gunpoint to get inside the vehicle. He hotwires the bus and drives it away to safety. Wynt then catches up with Jesse and comes up with a plan. Jesse begins to realize his friend knew that there was a fire from the beginning and never told anyone.

Wynt tells Jesse he started the forest fire in order for a land developer to build a training school for fire fighters, but knew nothing of the prison break. Jesse tells him it wasn't his fault and promises he will keep his crime a secret from his friends. Wynt confronts Shaye by telling him Shaye's lawyers set him up to take the fall. He shoots Shaye in the leg, but is killed in the process. Jesse throws a fire axe into Shaye's chest, causing him to fall off the boat he and Jennifer were in. Jesse and Jennifer use the boat as an air pocket to keep from drowning, and to prevent themselves from getting burned alive as the firestorm destroys the area. Suddenly, gunshots start coming from underneath them and a couple of bullets make a hole in the boat.

Shaye survives his injury and plans on killing Jennifer and Jesse. Jesse gets the upper hand and kills Shaye by shoving his head through the hole under the boat, burning him to death. Heavy rainfall then drowns out the fire and Jesse and Jennifer swim to shore, where they wait to be rescued. Jennifer also realizes that the eggs she had with her have hatched, much to the pleasure of Jesse.

Hal Linden stars as magician Alexander Blacke who, with some help from his con-man father Leonard (Harry Morgan), solves mysteries that get in the way of his performances. The series aired for a total of thirteen episodes and featured crimes that tested logic against seemingly magical crimes. The stories were not so much whodunits as "how-he-do-its," for Alex Blacke often had to turn detective to solve the mysteries.

25 year old Gypsy Vale (Sara Rue) and 18 year old Clive Webb (Kett Turton) are two goths living in Sandusky, Ohio. Gypsy's parents, Ray (John Doe) and Velvet (Marlene Wallace), once were in a band together, and Gypsy now aspires to be a famous singer, like her idol, Stevie Nicks. She is hesitant, because of the disappearance of her mother, to leave her father alone in Sandusky to pursue her dreams.

While checking updates on a Stevie Nicks fansite, Clive discovers the ''Night of a Thousand Stevies'' event in New York. After a long and heated discussion with Gypsy, her father reveals that her mother didn't just disappear, or die: she left to follow her dream of becoming a famous singer. Despite this, Clive finally convinces Gypsy to go to New York.

Along the way, Gypsy and Clive encounter a diverse host of characters and obstacles. They pick up a hitchhiker named Zechariah, who claims he is running away from the Amish life. Together, the three decide to stop and spend the night at a rest stop. While there, Clive expresses his attraction for Zechariah, but Zechariah says that he's attracted to Gypsy. Clive is embarrassed and runs away. Gypsy is surprised and flattered and as a result, she and Zechariah end up sleeping together. Afterward, Zechariah says that he's made a mistake and needs to return home.

Enraged, Gypsy throws him out of the bathroom where she is staying at the rest stop. Meanwhile, Clive is accosted in secret by Troy, who is also spending the night at the rest stop with his fraternity brothers, and the two have a sexual encounter.

The next morning, while Gypsy and Clive are trying to console each other and make sense out of the events of the previous night, the two are egged and mocked by the fraternity brothers as they leave the rest area while Troy sits silently. They miss the auditions for the Night of a Thousand Stevies, and Gypsy learns that her mother committed suicide four years earlier.

The sympathetic Mistress of Ceremonies, also her mother's best friend when she was in New York, allows Gypsy to perform a song she wrote for her mother at the end of the show. In the end, Gypsy stays in New York to pursue her musical aspirations like her mother, and Clive returns to Sandusky to finish high school but plans to come back to New York after he graduates.

Despite being considered a sequel to ''Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors'', ''Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge'' has the same plot and endings as the previous game, only adding stories and endings to the new characters and the (now playable) bosses.

Pyron invades Earth to add to his collection of planets that he has devoured. The world's most fearsome monsters are the last defense of mankind. Two darkstalker hunters make their presence known and join in the fray. Donovan Baine and Hsien-Ko are "Dark Hunters" who are out to hunt the other Darkstalkers in the game (hence the Japanese title, ''Vampire Hunter'').

Jedah Dohma, one of the high nobles of Makai, is resurrected after a premature death long ago. Seeing the current chaotic state of the demon world, he decides that the only way to save Makai is to recreate it. To this end, he conjures a pocket dimension known as Majigen, to which he summons worthy souls to help feed his new world. As luck would have it, those souls belong to the returning Darkstalkers from the first two games, in addition to three newcomers.

Hundreds of years ago, the powerful dark sorceress Castomira sought to destroy the land of Arcus and remake it into a place of chaos and darkness. The only person powerful enough to stop her was Princess Leaty, a good sorceress and the granddaughter to the legendary King of Light. Leaty challenged Castomira and the two fought for days on end, but the powers of the light eventually overwhelmed the witch, who was banished to the Dark World for all eternity. Foreseeing the possible return of Castomira, Leaty created a magical sword known as "The Power of Leaty" and trusted its safekeeping with the King of Arcus.

Now, a millennium later, Castomira's followers have stolen the Sword in order to revive their mistress as the power of darkness grows stronger by the day. Only the powers of four brave heroes can prevent a second coming of Castomira and return peace to Arcus. They are: Jedda Chef the swordsman, Diana Fireya the archer; Erin Gashuna the warrior-maiden; and Bead Shia the mage. At the end of the game, the players are given a choice between either using the sword to defeat Castomira or helping the witch regain her power.

The story is narrated by Asterix, apparently to the conventional readers, and informs that in childhood, Obelix was often bullied by other boys, until Asterix, to help his courage, induced him to drink some of the magic potion that made the villagers invincible. When they are interrupted in the act, Obelix falls into the cauldron containing the potion, and drinks it all, and is thereafter permanently under its influence.

John Heath is a "dead average" man working for Quantum Pharmaceuticals. Unhappy with his average position in the company and in life, he searches for a way to improve himself and at the same time impress his fiancée, Susan Collins. When researchers from Quantum give him the opportunity, he volunteers to be a test subject for a new drug that allows total memory recall. When the drug succeeds and John is able to remember everything and anything that he has ever read or heard down to the exact word, he goes on a rampage to climb the corporate ladder in his company, blackmailing his superiors into conceding to his demands. When his bosses and the researchers who gave him the drug trick him and lock him in one of the rooms in the office building, they try to inject him with the antidote for the recall drug. Susan, however, comes to his rescue, and although they never succeed in giving him the antidote (after he suffers a traumatic shock, the bosses believe he has lost the power), John promises to Susan never to use his new power for malevolence, while the possibility remains open that maybe one day everyone could possess that ability.

Ferdinand is an army major and son of President von Walter, a high-ranking noble in a German duke's court, while Luise Miller is the daughter of a middle-class musician. The couple fall in love with each other, but both their fathers tell them to end their affair. The president instead wants to expand his own influence by marrying off his son Ferdinand to Lady Milford, the duke's mistress. However, Ferdinand rebels against his father's plan and tries to persuade Luise to elope with him. The president and his secretary Wurm (Ferdinand's rival) concoct an insidious plot, arresting Luise's parents for no reason. Luise declares, in a love letter to the Hofmarschall von Kalb, that only by death can she obtain her parents' release. Luise is also forced to swear an oath to God to state she wrote this letter (actually forced on her) of her own free will. This letter is leaked to Ferdinand and deliberately evokes jealousy and vengeful despair in him.

Luise tries to get released from her oath by suicide, dying before Ferdinand and restoring their love's innocence, but her father puts a stop to this by putting massive moral and religious pressure on the couple. This means she has only silence and the lie required by the oath to counter the charges against her. Luise is released from her secrecy by death, revealing the intrigue to Ferdinand and forgiving him, and Ferdinand reaches out his hand to his father at the moment of his death, which the President interprets as his son's forgiveness.

In a subplot, Lady Milford is shown in a position between the middle and upper classes, in love with Ferdinand. She is confronted with Luise's pure and simple love for Ferdinand. Despite Lady Milford's love for him, they are intent on marriage and withdrawing from the world of the court.

Clifford Southey (Mills) is a clerk at a brokerage firm who is promoted to lieutenant colonel during the war. His subordinate officer, Captain Brett Aimsley (Mason), was a partner at Southey's firm. Popular and charismatic, Capt. Aimsley is everything Col. Southey is not, but aspires to be. Unfortunately money is Aimsley's weakness. His profligacy sees him removed from Southey's command.

Some time after the war, Aimsley's comfortable exile in Tahiti is rudely interrupted by the arrival of his old adversary, now director of a hotel chain looking to expand into the burgeoning South Seas market.

Andrei Dubrovsky is an old poor nobleman whose land is confiscated by a greedy, rich and powerful aristocrat, Kirila Petrovitch Troekurov. His young son Wladimir, determined to venge his father and to get justice one way or another, gathers a band of serfs and goes on the rampage, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Along the way, Wladimir Dubrovsky falls in love with Masha, Troekurov's daughter, and lets his guard down, with tragic results.

Vladimir Dubrovsky is a young nobleman whose land is confiscated by greedy and powerful aristocrat Kiril Petrovitch Troekurov. Determined to get justice one way or another, Dubrovsky gathers together a band of serfs and goes on a rampage like another Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Along the way, Dubrovsky falls in love with Masha, Troekurov’s daughter, and foolishly lets his guard down, with tragic results.

The libretto does not follow Pushkin's original closely. At the end of the opera, the police, who want Vladimir for arson, are close on his heels. He gets the opportunity to sing a long duet with Masha before being shot. Masha's father enters to find his now insane daughter with Dubrovsky's body.

In the opera, Nápravník played down the social aspect underscoring the love story of Dubrovsky and the daughter of his sworn enemy. Overall, however, Nápravník stayed true to Pushkin's romantic style.

Lady Maltby arrives to see Captain Mainwaring in his office, as she is unable to acquire any petrol for her Rolls-Royce car, so is keen to see it used for the war effort. She is carefully maintaining her class distinction, being very superior to Mainwaring, then catches sight of Sergeant Wilson, and greets him warmly as "Dear Arthur". They talk for a few minutes, obviously well acquainted, leaving Mainwaring fuming.

Mainwaring is very keen to use the vehicle as a staff car, so Private Frazer offers to respray it in camouflage cheaply. Unfortunately, there is a misunderstanding when Frazer collects the car, and he takes the Mayor's Rolls Royce instead. A great flap ensues, which is calmed down by the accusation that the Mayor's chauffeur obviously had not disabled the car when he left it, which takes the wind out of the angry Mayor's sails. Of course the Mayor's car is now not black but camouflaged, so Frazer has to spray it again.

In the background the town is preparing for the visit of a Free French general. Mainwaring is not impressed, and tells Wilson that "the French don't make very good soldiers, you know, especially after lunch". There is a lot of argument between the Wardens and the Home Guard about who should have the most important spot in the Guard of Honour. Frazer just manages to deliver the Mayor's (now black) car in time, but the paint is still wet.

At the Guard of Honour, the vicar's choir sings half the French National Anthem ("they didn't have time to learn it all"), Wilson gives a welcoming speech in French, and the French General is so overcome he kisses Wilson, then Mainwaring, on both cheeks. Then the flash of Private Cheeseman's camera startles him, and he steadies himself with his hands against the Rolls Royce, so that when he kisses the outraged Warden Hodges he ends up with black paint all over his face.

In the morning Jack Brodie, a judo brown belt who just moved to London from Cleethorpes, learns London has won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately, his mood and his first day at his new school are quickly ruined when he learns the London Underground has been bombed. His new-found friend Ben leaves school property in search of his father who may be at one of the attacked stations. Jack follows him.

As soon as the school staff learn about the attacks through a phone call from a concerned parent, the trip to a music competition is immediately cancelled and the music teacher convinces the students to practice in the music room until they can leave. Muslim Bass Guitar player Ayesha has been the focus of bully Kelly Davies since the start of the day when she accidentally bumped into her and made her drop her mobile phone. Kelly and her friend Marie start to taunt Ayesha and her friend Mike, saying that they're an item. This culminates in Kelly stealing Ayesha's brand new mobile phone. She warns her not to tell anyone or she'll be 'sorrier than she can dream'. However, Mike tells their teacher and gets Kelly punished. Ayesha is angry with him for the rest of the day and only forgives him when they're on their way home.

Kelly turns on Marie when she shows remorse for joining her in bullying Ayesha and throws her book out of the window.

Jack and Ben are still intent on finding Liverpool Street station where Ben's dad works. When they enter a shop to ask for directions, a man agrees to take them there. When he attempts to mug Ben, Jack uses his judo skills to trip him up and the two boys run for their lives.

The entire class is waiting for the bus, but upon seeing Ayesha and her sister Jamilia, the driver makes a comment about not having their jihad on his bus , closes the doors and drives off, leaving most of the kids out on the street. Kelly starts picking on Ayesha again, until Marie finally snaps at her telling her how stupid she is. Kelly turns away and walks home angrily. Ayesha, Mike and Jamilia walk the other way, discussing the mad and bitter bus driver.

Ben eventually finds his dad, who's covered in patches of soot and blood stains; he was travelling on one of the bombed underground trains and was one carriage down from the explosion. He's still in shock from what he's observed and most of his clothes are damaged by fire and shrapnel. He stops at a café and tells them he had to make a statement due to being so close to bomb. The carnage and devastation he's been made to see of those dying, dead and mutilated prove too much and he breaks down in tears as Ben and Jack look on taken aback of seeing Ben's dad crying. Eventually Ben, his dad and Jack go back to their homes. Jack's mum walks into her son's room to see him tearing up a newspaper with the Olympic rings on them and says that London won't always be like this. Jack sticks the picture on the wall and says that he thinks he's going to like it here.

Tokyo. 1910. Dr. Daitokuji Yukio (Masahiro Motoki), a former military doctor who has taken over a successful practice from his father and treats plague victims, is living a charmed life: he is a respected young doctor with a successful practice and Rin (Ryo), a beautiful wife. His only problem is that she suffers from amnesia, and her past is unknown.

However, things begin to fall apart. Both his parents die suddenly, killed by a mysterious stranger who looks just like him. His relationship with his wife worsens after he chooses to cure the mayor instead of destitute denizens of nearby ghettos. While isolated from his relatives, he one day faces the mysterious stranger who turns out to be his long-lost rejected twin, Sutekichi (again Motoki). Bent on revenge, Sutekichi throws him into the garden's well and takes over his life and his wife.

The final conflict between the two brothers is realized when Yukio, forced into an animalistic existence in the well, reemerges, prompting the fratricidal fight for the love of the same woman, since it turns out (while he takes over Yukio's role) that Rin had actually once been Sutekichi's lover.

Story

''Welcome to the N.H.K.'' revolves around the lives of several young adults all living in or around the city of Tokyo. Many different lifestyles are shown though most of the time the story focuses on the concepts of being a ''hikikomori'' (a reclusive individual who withdraws from society), anime otaku, and having most of the characters experience intense feelings of depression and loneliness.

The main protagonist is Tatsuhiro Satō, a university dropout entering his fourth year of unemployment. He leads a reclusive life as a ''hikikomori'', ultimately coming to the conclusion that this happened due to some sort of conspiracy. One day just when his life seems entirely unchanging, he meets Misaki Nakahara, a mysterious girl who claims to be able to cure Tatsuhiro of his ''hikikomori'' ways. She presents him with a contract basically outlining that once a day they would meet in the evening in a local park where Misaki would lecture to Tatsuhiro in an effort to rid him of his lifestyle. During these outings, many subjects are discussed, though they almost always pertain in some way to psychology or psychoanalysis. One of their first meetings in fact deals with interpreting Tatsuhiro's recent dreams. Both Tatsuhiro and Misaki, however, have a tendency of over-doing things, such as hiding the truth, especially from each other and themselves. Despite Misaki's offer and pressing attempts at salvation, it is Tatsuhiro's neighbor and high school friend, Kaoru Yamazaki, whom Tatsuhiro often turns to in moments of need and support. Despite his own idiosyncrasies, Yamazaki is one of the more stable characters in the story.

The plots within the novel, manga and anime are each rather different from one another, and many themes and personalities differ between each. The novel also regularly mentions drug use by the main character, and later, his friend, Yamazaki. This element of the story is downplayed in the manga (drugs Satō uses are referred to as "legal psychedelics purchased off the internet"), and left out of the story altogether in the anime (with the exception of Hitomi). This is likely due to several reasons, including a more public-friendly rating, as well as ultimately being unneeded for the progression of the plot. Lolita themes present within the novel and manga have also been downplayed within the anime, where most of the women the characters lust after are of mature age, although brief hints still remain.

N.H.K.

The of Satō's imagination is supposedly a sinister conspiracy which aims to turn people into ''hikikomori'' and NEETs. No clear reason why they would do this is offered, although Satō considers the potential of an "army" of displaced individuals, and it is mentioned that ''hikikomori'' are created for the purpose of giving society someone to look down upon, making themselves feel superior. The majority of the N.H.K.'s work is done through the media, via broadcasting anime and other material that is likely to turn the viewer into an otaku. Throughout the series, many shots of advertising hoardings or movie posters incidentally displayed in other locations bear N.H.K. references.

Satō on occasion also believes that the N.H.K. takes a more active role via the use of agents, although of course these agents only appear in dream sequences or flashbacks. Three types of N.H.K. agents are seen: the first are classic Men in Black who appear to have the ability to disguise themselves as anyone else they wish. They occupy key roles in a target's life, ensuring that they fail to develop. The second are cute, or more precisely moé girls who directly break the hearts of targets or who, via celebrity status, induce targets to have impossible or unrealistic expectations of relationships, destroying their ability to develop them in the real world (Satō never considers how, or even if, the N.H.K. would target women). Satō at one point fears that Misaki may be an agent of this type. The final type of agents are bizarre goblin-like creatures who are grey all over but for a letter (usually "N", "H" or "K") written in yellow on their belly. These creatures appear to be the masterminds of the entire N.H.K. conspiracy, but more likely than not they are Satō's mental image of the spreading mindset or circumstances he associates with the N.H.K. In the novel, it is hinted that Tatsuhiro may not actually believe the conspiracy to exist but instead needed an imaginary enemy to vent his frustrations on and to help motivate him into overcoming his hikikomori ways.

The real-life public broadcaster NHK, which is the source of the acronym that is parodied by the series, really does provide a support website for real-life ''hikikomori''. In the manga and novel, a concrete link between the public broadcaster NHK and Satō's Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai is implied; in the anime, although the conspiracy is still named NHK, no such correspondence is drawn and it appears that the NHK does not even exist as a broadcaster in the anime's version of Japan (in the anime, Misaki has never heard of the acronym when Satō says it to her). This may have been because the anime was broadcast on TV channels operated by other Japanese broadcasting companies, thus implying that it related to the real TV company and could have been interpreted as slander against a competitor.

Puru Puru Pururin

is a fictitious magical girl anime of which Kaoru Yamazaki is a fan, featured only in the anime version (in the novel, Yamazaki is a fan of the real world show ''Ojamajo Doremi'' which is replaced by ''Puru Puru Pururin'' in the anime). It is never explicitly stated, but strongly suggested, that Satō believes this series to be controlled by the N.H.K.; in fact, it is after seeing an episode of the series which inspires him to think up the N.H.K. as a concept. The series had a real website, which further suggested this. For example, although it appears to be a children's style of series, the schedule on the website suggested that it is shown almost daily in the small hours of the morning, when children would not be awake, but ''hikikomori'' frequently are. Although the website listed the names of several real-world broadcast channels which supposedly carry the show, none of them are operated by the real-world NHK, again suggesting that in the anime's version of Japan, the N.H.K. is not a broadcasting company and is a conspiracy spanning all media. The listed broadcast times and channels are in fact the times at which the ''Welcome to the N.H.K.'' anime aired.

Only brief excerpts of ''Puru Puru Pururin'' are ever seen, and it is not possible to guess what powers the main character, Pururin, would have. It appears that Pururin is a good, heroic character and is assisted by a number of animated household objects, including a vacuum cleaner upon which she flies; her trademark is to randomly append the word ''Purin'' to the end of sentences, similarly to the title character in ''Di Gi Charat''. The theme song first heard in the first episode is sung by Rumi Shishido. This theme appears in ringtone version throughout the series.

Characters

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: The story's protagonist is a 22-year-old hikikomori of nearly four years. He is highly unstable, easily manipulated, obsessive, and often blames the N.H.K. conspiracy, a fabrication of his mind, for his shortcomings. He lives in a rented apartment, but depends on his parents' allowance to live. Within the novel and manga, he engages in fairly hard drug use, which is the cause of his delusional visions, although this does not occur within the anime. Near the beginning of the series he finds out one of his few high school friends, Kaoru Yamazaki, has been living next door to him for quite some time. Yamazaki's influence inadvertently makes Sato become an otaku. Sato also decides to help Yamazaki on the creation of a gal game by writing the script. However, the reason for accepting the writing task was initially to get a girl he met, Misaki Nakahara, off his back. Misaki wants Sato to participate in her project, a therapy of sorts. Although he was extremely reluctant at first, he eventually agrees to take part in Misaki's project, albeit not treating it seriously at first. As they spend more time together he quickly falls in love with her, but is afraid to show it since he knows so little about her despite the fact she knows so much about him. His paranoia drives him to tail Misaki one day to find out where she lives. The result of the expedition reveals that Misaki lives on a nearby hill which gives her a perfect view of Sato's apartment as well as the park where they meet for their sessions. Again driven by paranoia, he tries to save himself from potential betrayal by claiming he doesn't want to see her ever again. Shortly thereafter, Sato accidentally becomes involved in a suicide party but ends up being the closest one to go through with it. Yamazaki and Misaki talk him out of it, and he resumes Misaki's project, but his feelings for her have become platonic rather than amorous. Near the end of the series, Sato's true feelings for her are revealed when Misaki makes up another contract that will bind them together as a couple forever. Despite how he feels, he rejects the contract thinking that he has to protect her from his own condition, and believing she deserves someone much better than he is even if it would mean that he reverts to being a hikikomori. Later, Sato finds a suicide note from Misaki, but because of an earlier conversation he knows where she will be. Sato eventually finds Misaki and confesses the truth that he needs and loves her in an attempt to prevent her from going through with the suicide. In the end, they decide to continue their relationship while Misaki finishes her high school equivalency, and they go to college together. In the closing scene Sato signs a new contract proposal from Misaki that binds their actual lives together. ;
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: A mysterious girl who claims to be a volunteer from a "charity project" to help ''hikikomori'' like Tatsuhiro. She has the tendency to lie and hides facts such as the fact that she dropped out of high school, but she does not mean any harm. She tells Tatsuhiro whatever it takes to make him pay attention to her and seems to have a deep attachment to him. She makes a contract with Tatsuhiro in order to believe that she is needed by somebody and therefore not an unwanted person who only makes others around her unhappy. Although not the case in the manga, it is explained within the anime that her biological father died when she was very young and her mother died by falling off the cape in her hometown. After her mother's death, she was forced to live with her abusive stepfather who constantly beat her. Due to this experience, when Tatsuhiro is about to hit her following the events at the island, she flinches by instinct. She loves Sato and tries to make it seem like he needs her more but in reality she is even more lonely than he is to the point where she attempts to commit suicide after Sato refuses her feelings in a second contract she makes. She is seen at the end of the anime getting help from Sato to finish her high school degree, so that she and Sato can go and finish college in order to start their life (relationship) officially together. Misaki's personality greatly differs between the manga and the novel and anime; in the manga she appears more sarcastic and doesn't hesitate to reprimand Tatsuhiro, even showing a more manipulative, controlling side, while in the novel and anime, she has an introverted personality and is portrayed to be more innocent. ;
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: Tatsuhiro's former kouhai (junior) in high school, who is an otaku. Tatsuhiro once stood up for him when he was still in middle school being beaten up by some bullies, since then, he respects Tatsuhiro greatly and decided to join the literature club with him when he went into high school. Although appearing to be very mellow, he has a tendency to lash out at those who anger him. He seems to be disappointed with the current state of Tatsuhiro. He is currently Tatsuhiro's neighbor and a college student aspiring to be a game creator. He made Tatsuhiro join his dōjin soft eroge project, and was also responsible for turning Tatsuhiro into an otaku. His family owns a sizable farm in Hokkaidō. Later, he is forced to return to the farm due to his father's sickness; at that point, realizing he has no hope of continuing any aspect of his life in Tokyo, he drives away his crush, Nanako. In the end of the story, he is living happily at his parents' farm and also dating a girl who looks exactly like Nanako whom he hopes to marry in the future. In the manga, his counterpart tends to be more openly absorbed with lolicon and introduced Sato to illicit drugs as well as other schemes. ;
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: Tatsuhiro's senpai in high school, now a public servant. Due to stress, Hitomi develops a dependence on drugs. Hitomi met Tatsuhiro when she persuaded him to join the Literature Club, though most of the time they only ever played cards. She has always been fascinated by the concept of conspiracy theories and is one of the reasons Tatsuhiro suspects the conspiracy against himself by the N.H.K. Also, it is noted in both the anime and novel that she had sex with Tatsuhiro during the last day of school before she graduated because Tatsuhiro kept her company in literature club for her last two years of high school. She attempts a suicide through an internet suicide pact called the Offline Meeting Notice. However, she changes her mind after her boyfriend proposes to her. She gets married and has a healthy kid, though on New Year's Eve, before her marriage she asks Tatsuhiro if he wants to have an illicit affair with her and have sex in a love hotel they were standing in front of, but Tatsuhiro reminds her that since she's happy she should have a good life. ;
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: Tatsuhiro's classmate in high school, who was the class representative back then. They meet frequently in manga, but neither of them realizes the existence of each other until later. After her father died, she had to work in order to support herself and her brother, who is also a hikikomori, though she ended up entangled in a shady pyramid scheme. During school, she had a very uptight personality about which Tatsuhiro commented to her face. After high school, she retains much of this personality, though she has also become somewhat manipulative in order to survive. She develops a lack of empathy to others and is not beyond exploiting anyone, including friends, to meet ends. After the pyramid scheme ends and her brother gets a job, she thinks about going back to college.

Lord Robert Brummell (William Haines), an impecunious bachelor, is ordered by his wealthy uncle Lord George Hampton (C. Aubrey Smith) to settle down with a wife. Not wishing to tie himself down to any one girl, Brummell endeavors to prove that no woman is worthy of him by pretending to be a gigolo. When he meets the beautiful, wealthy Roxana Hartley (Irene Purcell), Lord Robert becomes increasingly frustrated when she deftly resists all his techniques of seduction. But his realisation that he loves her occurs at the same time that Roxana discovers his true identity and decides to pay him back.

A Prussian officer (David Bowie) returns home to Berlin following the end of the Great War. Unable to find employment elsewhere, he works as a gigolo in a brothel run by the Baroness (Marlene Dietrich). He is eventually killed in street fighting between Nazis and Communists. Both sides claim his body but the Nazis succeed in capturing it and bury him with honours, "a hero to a cause he did not support".

A writer Algernon, moves into a new apartment. He purchases a picture of a boat on a lake from a persuasive salesman although he dislikes it. His friends tell him it is not particularly impressive to look at. After a few days, Algernon finds himself fixating on the image and finds it difficult to write and eat. He believes his obsession with the picture is a result of his intense sensitivity and vivid imagination and he has difficulty sleeping.

Algernon throws a party, where he meets a girl who distracts him from the photograph. He finds her very attractive but does not develop any obsessive feelings about the image around her. Algernon regains the ability to eat, write and sleep. His friends describe the girl as a "real good catch". He later decides to marry her, and they honeymoon at the 1964 New York World's Fair, which is still under construction. After their honeymoon, Algernon starts to write a book of confessions, and the girl paints pictures. However, after having a conversation with a psychoanalyst about his obsession with the image, Algernon becomes focused on another picture, depicting an ocean. His fixation on the new photograph leads him to feel trapped inside it.

Set in an imaginary village on the Ligurian Riviera, Ombrosa represents the author's vision as a central theme, little inclined to judgments and dull opinions.

The novel is narrated by Biagio, the younger brother of the protagonist, and is the story of a young baron, Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, firstborn of a noble family sadly behind the times. The main story begins with a dispute on June 15, 1767 in the villa of Ombrosa, between an adolescent Cosimo and his father, after which Cosimo, who had quarreled with his father because he had refused to eat a snail soup, climbs the trees of the home garden and promises never to come down again in his entire life.

After the quarrel, Cosimo's life takes place in the trees; first in the family garden and then in the surrounding woods. Cosimo's life is full of adventures, from friendships with fruit thieves and bandits to days spent hunting or reading. In the life of the baron there is no lack of amorous encounters either. Cosimo's fame spreads quickly. At first, he becomes famous as a freak show and his family is almost ashamed of him, but later he also finds a way to win the respect of the Ombrosa community. The return of Viola, his first love, triggers a mutual feeling, always existent, which sadly ends due to a series of misunderstandings. The love between the two is strong, even if the relationship is filled with furious quarrels. Its end comes about in an unusual way: aged and sick, feeling the onset of death, Cosimo climbs to the top of a large walnut tree and hangs himself on a passing balloon. Thus, without betraying his promise to never set foot on the earth again, he disappears into the sky, without even giving the earth his remains.

After the final victory of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communists in 1949, an American company prepares to abandon their Chinese operations, leaving three people behind to oversee transitional affairs - Carl Fitter, Verne Tildon, and Barbara Mahler. Verne and Barbara were previously involved with each other back in the United States, in 1945, when she lost her virginity to him. They have sex again, but Barbara has matured, and becomes more interested in Carl, who is younger than she is. Carl is more interested in reading his handwritten volume of personal philosophy to her, but Barbara does succeed in seducing him, shortly before the arrival of the Chinese.

A bird's-eye view of Los Angeles is shown with searchlights moving to a conga beat. The action takes place in the famed Ciro's nightclub, where the Hollywood stars are having dinner at $50 ( ) a plate and "easy terms".

The first stars seen are Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, and, at a table behind them, Adolphe Menjou and Norma Shearer, followed by Cary Grant, seated alone. Grant's first lines reference his films ''My Favorite Wife'', ''The Awful Truth'', and ''His Girl Friday'' (originally titled ''The Front Page''). Greta Garbo comes along as a cigarette girl, and lights a match for Grant on her notoriously large feet.

In the next scene, Edward G. Robinson asks Ann Sheridan "How's the Oomph girl tonight?" Sheridan, then known as the "Oomph Girl", responds by uttering the word "Oomph" several times.

The camera then tracks past several other tables: Warner Bros. staffers Henry Binder and Leon Schlesinger appear as an in-joke, while the soundtrack quotes "Merrily We Roll Along" – the theme to the ''Merrie Melodies'' series. A seat is reserved for Bette Davis, as is a large sofa for the rotund Kate Smith; we see the seats reserved for the characters of the Blondie films, including a fire hydrant for Daisy the dog.

Meanwhile, in the cloakroom, Johnny Weissmuller checks a coat with Paulette Goddard that reveals his Tarzan outfit with the single addition of a tuxedo collar and black bow tie. Sally Rand (famous for her striptease acts and fan dance) leaves her trademark feather "fans" behind and is presumably naked.

In the next scene, James Cagney prepares Humphrey Bogart and George Raft – all known for their gangster roles – for a risky task. They get ready, turn, and start childishly pitching pennies.

Harpo Marx gives Garbo a hotfoot (lights matches tucked under her shoe), but in keeping with her subdued acting style, she responds with only a laconic "Ouch." Clark Gable (known for chasing women) turns his head around 180 degrees to observe a pretty blonde girl whom he follows offscreen.

Emcee Bing Crosby introduces the evening's entertainment, interrupted frequently by a lazy, over-affectionate race horse with an apparently unconscious jockey (The fact that Crosby owned several race horses who never won races was a staple radio gag in the early 1940s). Crosby presents Leopold Stokowski, who wears a snood as he prepares for what promises to be a serious orchestral performance— however, the song is "''Ahí, viene la conga''" and he dances to the beat. Different things happen during this performance:

• The conga inspires Dorothy Lamour to invite James Stewart to dance with her. Stewart, known for playing "shy guy" roles, stutters, stammers, and finally runs away scared leaving behind a sign reading "''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.''"
• Gable dances by, following the girl he saw earlier as he quotes "It's me again!"
• Tyrone Power dances with noted ice skater Sonja Henie.
• Boris Karloff (as the Frankenstein's monster) dances stiffly and woodenly.
• The Three Stooges poke, slap and smash each other in rhythm to the beat.
• Oliver Hardy's dance partner is revealed to be twin blonde women initially hidden by his obese frame.
• Cesar Romero dances with Rita Hayworth; considered to be two of the era's best big-screen dancers, they dance clumsily and spastically and Hayworth's gown is tattered at the bottom from being continuously stepped on.
• Mickey Rooney, sitting with Judy Garland, is presented with an expensive bill. A typical scene in the Andy Hardy film series occurs as Rooney turns to ask his on-screen father Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone) for a heart to heart talk. In the next scene, they are seen washing dishes to the conga beat.
• Still following the girl, Gable gives an aside to the audience "Don't go away folks, this oughta be good!"

Crosby then introduces the "feature attraction of the evening:" Sally Rand (identified as "Sally Strand") performing the bubble dance to "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". Crosby points to a stage area off screen, where the camera shifts to an unlit area and Rand standing still and holding a large white bubble in front of her presumably nude body from a longshot. A light comes on and shines on her and the camera zooms in on her, where we see Rand blink twice before motioning herself to dance. During the dance sequence, the camera shifts back and forth between the men's reactions and Strand dancing. All shots on Rand show her pacing back and forth on the stage carrying and dancing with her bubble:

• Kay Kyser, in his "Ol' Perfessor" character, shouts out "Students!" to which a group of men wolf-whistle in unison and exclaim "Baby!": They are William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Ronald Colman, Errol Flynn, Wallace Beery and C. Aubrey Smith.
• Uninterested in Sally's dance, Peter Lorre cryptically states "I haven't seen such a beautiful bubble since I was a child" (possibly in reference to his breakthrough film role as a child murderer in ''M'').
• Henry Fonda hears Alice Aldrich of ''The Aldrich Family'' calling "Hen-''reeeeee''!" to which he quotes "Coming mother!" He is then pulled away by his ear.
• J. Edgar Hoover then says "Gee!" several times as a pun on his position as a G-man.
• Boris Karloff, Arthur Treacher, Buster Keaton, and Mischa Auer watch the dance with their typical deadpan expressions until Ned Sparks, another famous movie "grouch," asks them if they are having a good time. They respond in unison with a solemn "Yes."
• Jerry Colonna is very excited while looking through the binoculars and utters his catchphrases "Guess who?", to which the camera reveals an invisible character next to him called "Yehudi!" ("Who's Yehudi?" was Colonna's famous catchphrase, referring to violinist Yehudi Menuhin).

"Strand" tosses her bubble up in the air and catches it on the way back down, titillating the audience. Now that Strand is standing still on the stage, this allows Harpo Marx, who was hiding underneath a table, the perfect opportunity to shoot her bubble with his slingshot. The bubble explodes when the missile hits it, and Sally reacts with shock as it reveals her wearing a barrel underneath as the curtain closes.

Meanwhile, Gable has finally caught up to the girl he was chasing, insisting she kiss him. "She" turns out to be Groucho Marx in drag and says "Well, fancy meeting you here!" The cartoon ends with a long-lost clip which was cut in reissue prints of Gable saying to the camera "I'm a bad boy". (This was Lou Costello's catchphrase, Abbott and Costello having become massive comedy stars just the year before.)

Petty hood Franz (Fassbinder) refuses to join the syndicate, where he meets a handsome young thug called Bruno (Lommel) and gives him his address in Munich. It is the flat of the prostitute Joanna (Schygulla), where Franz lives as her pimp. Bruno has been ordered by the syndicate to follow Franz and on going to the address is told he has moved. So he goes round the streets of the city asking prostitutes if they know a prostitute called Joanna.

Eventually he finds where the pair are hiding, because Franz is being sought by a Turk for killing his brother. Bruno offers to solve the problem, so the three go to the café where the Turk can be found and shoot him. As they leave, Bruno also shoots the waitress who is the only witness. Franz is picked up by the police for both killings and, while he is held for questioning, Joanna starts an affair with Bruno.

When Franz is freed because the police have no evidence, the three then plan a bank robbery. As they arrive outside, plain clothes police appear and Bruno is killed in a shootout while Franz and Joanna get away. In the car she tells him she had tipped the cops off about the robbery. He says "Nutte" [whore] and keeps on driving as the film fades to white.

When Professor Godfrey St. Peter and wife move to a new house, he becomes uncomfortable with the route his life is taking. He keeps on his dusty study in the old house in an attempt to hang on to his old life. The marriages of his two daughters have removed them from the home and added two new sons-in-law, precipitating a mid-life crisis that leaves the Professor feeling as though he has lost the will to live because he has nothing to look forward to.

The novel initially addresses the Professor's interactions with his new sons-in-law and his family, while continually alluding to the pain they all feel over the death of Tom Outland in the Great War. Outland was not only the Professor's student and friend, but the fiancé of his elder daughter, who is now living off the wealth created by the "Outland vacuum."

The novel's central section turns to Outland, and recounts in first-person the story of his exploration of an ancient cliff city in New Mexico. The section is a retrospective narrative remembered by the professor.

In the final section, the professor, left alone while his family takes an expensive European tour, narrowly escapes death due to a gas leak in his study; and finds himself strangely willing to die. He is rescued by the old family seamstress, Augusta, who has been his staunch friend throughout. He resolves to go on with his life.

Using language with elements of the medieval tales which were his models, Morris tells the story of Ralph, the youngest son of King Peter of Upmeads. Their kingdom being rather humble, Ralph and his three elder brothers are bored of the provincial life, so one day they request permission from their father to explore the world. The king allows the three eldest sons to depart, but bids Ralph to stay to ensure at least one living heir. Ralph, desperate for adventure and against his father's will, sneaks away.

Ralph's explorations begin at Bourton Abbas, after which he goes through the Wood Perilous. He has various adventures there, including the slaying of two men who had entrapped a woman. That woman later turns out to be the Lady of Abundance, who later becomes his lover for a short time.

In one episode Ralph is staying at a castle and inquires about the Lady of the castle (the so-called Lady of Abundance), whom he has not yet seen. Descriptions of her youth and beauty suggest to him that she has drunk from the well at the world's end. "And now in his heart waxed the desire of that Lady, once seen, as he deemed, in such strange wise; but he wondered within himself if the devil had not sown that longing within him ..." A short time later, while still at the castle, Ralph contemplates images of the Lady and "was filled with the sweetness of desire when he looked on them." Then he reads a book containing information about her, and his desire to meet the Lady of Abundance flames higher. When he goes to bed, he sleeps "for the very weariness of his longing." He fears leaving the castle because she might come while he is gone. Eventually he leaves the castle and meets the Lady of Abundance, who turns out to be the same lady he had rescued some weeks earlier from two men.

When he meets her this time, the lady is being fought over by two knights, one of whom slays the other. That knight nearly kills Ralph, but the lady intervenes and promises to become the knight's lover if he would spare Ralph. Eventually, she leads Ralph away during the night to save Ralph's life from this knight, since Ralph had once saved hers. She tells Ralph of her trip to the Well at the World's End, her drinking of the water, the tales of her long life, and a maiden named Ursula whom she thinks is especially suited to Ralph. Eventually, the knight catches up to them and kills her with his sword while Ralph is out hunting. Upon Ralph's return, the knight charges Ralph, and Ralph puts an arrow through his head. After Ralph buries both of them, he begins a journey that will take him to the Well at the World's End.

As he comes near the village of Whitwall, Ralph meets a group of men, which includes his brother Blaise and Blaise's attendant, Richard. Ralph joins them, and Richard tells Ralph about having grown up in Swevenham, from which two men and one woman had once set out for the Well at the World's End. Richard had never learned what happened to those three. Richard promises to visit Swevenham and learn what he can about the Well at the World's End.

Ralph falls in with some merchants, led by a man named Clement, who travel to the East. Ralph is in search of the Well at the World's End, and they are in search of trade. This journey takes him far to the east in the direction of the well, through the villages of Cheaping Knowe, Goldburg, and many other hamlets. Ralph learns that a maiden, whom the Lady of Abundance had mentioned to him, has been captured and sold as a slave. He inquires about her, calling her his ‘sister’, and he hears that she may have been sold to Gandolf, the cruel, powerful, and ruthless Lord of Utterbol. The queen of Goldburg writes Ralph a letter of recommendation to Gandolf, and Morfinn the Minstrel, whom Ralph met at Goldburg, promises to guide him to Utterbol.

Morfinn turns out to be a traitor who delivers Ralph into the hands of Gandolf. After some time with the Lord of Utterbol and his men, Ralph escapes. Meanwhile, Ursula, Ralph's "sister", who has been enslaved at Utterbol, escapes and by chance meets Ralph in the woods beneath the mountain, both of them desiring to reach the Well at the World's End. Eventually their travels take them to the Sage of Swevenham, who gives them instructions for finding the Well at the World's End.

On their journey to the well, they fall in love, especially after Ralph saves her life from a bear's attack. Eventually they make their way to the sea, on the edge of which is the Well at the World's End. They each drink a cup of the well's water and are enlivened by it. They then backtrack along the path they had earlier followed, meeting the Sage of Swevenham and the new Lord of Utterbol, who has slain the previous evil lord and remade the city into a good city, and the pair returns the rest of the way to Upmeads.

While they experience challenges and battles along the way, the pair succeeds in all their endeavors. Their last challenge is a battle against men from the Burg of the Four Friths. These men come against Upmeads to attack it. As Ralph approaches Upmeads, he gathers supporters around him, including the Champions of the Dry Tree. After Ralph and his company stop at Wulstead, where Ralph is reunited with his parents as well as Clement Chapman, he leads a force in excess of a thousand men against the enemy and defeats them. He then brings his parents back to High House in Upmeads to restore them to their throne. As Ralph and Ursula come to the High House, Ralph's parents install Ralph and Ursula as King and Queen of Upmeads.

Cynthia is traumatized by the death of her baby after leaving him in a bathtub, where he accidentally drowned. She and five of her friends, Jeff, Rob, Lynn, Paul and Terri decide to go on a vacation. They take a plane somewhere but are plagued by engine troubles and are forced to land the plane on a lonely deserted island. The six set camp, and the next morning, Paul stays at the camp while the others set off to find help. They come upon a large cottage nestled in the woods.

After entering the cottage and fooling around a bit, they meet the owners, an elderly married couple going by the simple names of Ma and Pa. The group of friends is welcomed to spend the night. At dinner, Lynn starts smoking and Pa scolds her and demands that she smoke outside. Later, Lynn and Cynthia discover Ma and Pa have a child, Fanny, who looks more like a middle-aged woman but claims she is 12. That night, Ma and Pa throw more strict rules in, such as no cussing and forcing the girls and boys apart to prevent premarital sex.

The night passes by, and the next morning, Rob goes for a walk and finds Fanny pushing her brother, Woody, on a crudely crafted swing. Rob is invited to swing and agrees, only for Woody to climb to the top and chop the rope, sending Rob down the rocky cliff below to his death. The group finds out about Rob's death and mourn his loss. Later, Lynn and Cynthia are outside, and Lynn talks about how this family is a bunch of freaks and Fanny overhears. Cynthia sees this after Lynn leaves and consoles Fanny and reluctantly agrees to play games with Fanny. Fanny shows Cynthia her baby, thought to be just a doll, but it turns out to be the remains of an infant. Cynthia meets another brother, Teddy, and Fanny explains to him that Cynthia is her friend. Meanwhile, Lynn stumbles upon Woody, Teddy, and Fanny playing jump rope in the woods. After Lynn insults them, she is attacked and presumably killed by the three.

Cynthia tells Jeff about the mummified infant. Jeff tries to console Cynthia and they kiss. Fanny, who wants Jeff to herself, sees and becomes jealous. She confronts the two and kills Jeff by stabbing him in the eye with a sword on a knight statue. Cynthia explains her fear to Ma, but Ma attacks her, saying they are all wicked people. Cynthia flees, and Ma finishes Jeff off with her sewing needles. Cynthia runs into the woods, finding Lynn's corpse hanging from a tree and a frightened Terri. Cynthia explains everything to Terri and learns that Paul and the plane are missing. Woody and Teddy find the girls and chase them into the woods. Terri and Cynthia find Fanny, and Terri reveals a gun and holds Fanny at gunpoint, forcing her to help them get off the island. They show Fanny to Ma and Pa and demand their help to get off the island. To save his daughter, Pa tells the girls where a boat is. He leads them to a dinky fisherman's boat, where Paul's corpse is lying, an ax buried in his skull. Cynthia and Terri flee, and Teddy and Woody light Paul's body on fire.

Night comes, and Terri and Cynthia spend the night in a hollow tree. Terri and Cynthia run back to the cottage to find a radio but are attacked by Woody and Teddy. Teddy pursues Terri into the woods, and Fanny toys with Cynthia. Terri is caught by Teddy and has her neck snapped. Teddy rapes Terri's corpse, Woody tattletales, and Teddy gets a beating as Cynthia watches in horror. Cynthia eventually breaks down and becomes one of the family, celebrating Fanny's birthday and dressing in a pink gown to match Fanny. However, the flashbacks of her baby drowning get to her; she goes mad, bludgeoning Fanny to death with a metal washtub. She then murders Woody with the sword. She then confronts Ma and stabs her to death with her sewing needles. She finds Teddy and stabs him with a sickle. Pa discovers his family dead and goes outside only to be shot by his own shotgun by Cynthia, who has taken revenge and killed the demented family. The film ends as Cynthia goes upstairs, sits in Fanny's room, and slowly begins rocking the cradle, singing a soft lullaby.

The lives of two couples intertwine in mid-1950s California, and all learn important lessons about life. Jim Briskin is a classical music DJ. He and his ex-wife Patricia Gray are still very much in love but have divorced because he is sterile. The two divorcees meet a teenaged married couple named Art and Rachael and essentially swap partners.

Pat passionately loves the youthful but dysfunctional Art, almost as though he were her child, and the two of them have an abusive relationship in which he gives her a black eye. Meanwhile, Jim and Rachael hook up and Rachael offers to ditch Art and move to Mexico with Jim where he will adopt her baby and raise it as his own. In the end, however, maturity prevails and they all return to their original partners.

Miss Thisbe Holt of the original title is actually a very minor character in the book. She is a well-endowed stripper who performs at an optometrists convention which occurs near the very end of the novel. Her act consists of climbing naked into a large clear plastic ball which the optometrists then roll around the hotel suite to more thoroughly examine her ample personal assets. The ball is demolished when it's later filled with debris and pushed off the hotel roof by the inebriated optometrists.

The shortened title seems more obviously appropriate in that its lack of specificity allows it to do double duty in serving as a metaphor symbolizing the irreversible effects of the various life-altering events that occur within the orbits of the main characters.

Two teachers vie for the right to stage a play written by Jane Austen when she was twelve years old.

In 1944, Virginia Watson and Roger Lindahl meet in Washington DC. They marry after Roger divorces his first wife Teddy and abandons his daughter by her as well. Their subsequent move to Los Angeles to work in a munitions factory proves extremely profitable. But Roger spends the money far faster than it took them to earn it. By 1953, Roger has opened a television sales and repair shop, while Virginia is trying to enrol their 7-year-old son Gregg in an expensive boarding school in Ojai against Roger's wishes.

Liz Bonner, another parent, persuades Roger to agree to Gregg's enrollment by offering to share the perilous and exhausting driving duties involved in transporting their children over the nearby mountains to and from Ojai.

There is a particular private exchange between Roger Lindahl and Marion Watson, Virginia's mother, that very graphically depicts Roger's highly immature, volatile and unpredictable nature. The trigger for his outburst is the realization that his hostile mother-in-law (as a favor only to her daughter) plans on providing substantial financial backing for his business.

But there is yet another financial interloper afoot. "Chic" or Charles Bonner, Liz's husband, wants to buy into Roger's shop as a partner, but Lindahl declines his offer and promptly begins an affair with a very accommodating Liz. Virginia finds out, though Chic remains unaware, and she hectors Roger into letting her assume legal ownership of the shop with Chic. Unfortunately, however, both marriages have been irreparably damaged. Chic and Liz end up getting divorced. Roger and Virginia remain tenuously married, and a philandering Roger remains in contact with Liz through the private school. The final chapter closes with ever-impulsive Roger dumping Gregg off at home, pilfering a carload of expensive T.V. sets from the store and hightailing it to Chicago.

Guided by a holographic mentor, three aliens take the form of beautiful American women in order to stop an intergalactic terrorist (Joanie Laurer), from destroying Earth.

As with several lost Philip K. Dick novels of this period, all we know about it is an index card synopsis in the files of a publisher who rejected the book. According to Lawrence Sutin's book, ''Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick'', (Published 1989) this card was dated 1/3/58 and said:

In a letter dated 1960, Dick himself commented on the theme of the novel:

In the late twenty-first century, far out in a nearby asteroid belt, a gigantic derelict castle-like alien spacecraft is discovered by the space exploration vehicle ''Hermes,'' commanded by Captain Olof Carlsen. Investigating the spacecraft's interior, the astronauts first discover the desiccated corpses of giant bat-like creatures, then three glass coffins containing three immobilised humanoids—two male and one female—preserved in a state of suspended animation.

Returning to Earth with the preserved humanoids, Carlsen discovers the true nature of the beings when one of them kills a young reporter (and the son of a friend of Carlsen) whom Carlsen illicitly allowed to view the body. The woman kills her victim by completely draining his life-force (a quantifiable energy measured by devices called "lambda-field scanners") and when Carlsen attempts to intervene, partially draining him of energy as well. Carlsen survives, but is unable to prevent the woman from escaping from the hospital.

Carlsen joins forces with Dr. Hans Fallada, a scientist researching energy vampirism and longevity, to find the escaped vampire and recapture her. In the course of their investigations they discover that the aliens can transfer from one body to another, and that the other two have also escaped; they also discover the potential for energy vampirism—and more generalised voluntary energy transfer—that exists in all humans, and the parallels between vampirism, criminality, and sexual fetishisation. At last Carlsen tracks down the vampires in London, their leader having possessed the body of the Prime Minister; but their confrontation is averted when representatives from the Nioth-Korghai,The names ''Nioth Korghai'' and ''Ubbo-Sathla'' are taken from the works of horror writer Clark Ashton Smith. the vampires' original race, appear and offer the vampires (the Ubbo-Sathla, as they call themselves) the chance to regain their original nature as higher-dimension energy-beings. The vampires accept joyfully, but destroy themselves upon regaining the ability to see themselves for what they had become.

An epilogue, set nearly a century later, reveals that Carlsen has used the techniques of benevolent energy transference he learned via his encounters with the vampires to live an extraordinarily long life, and possibly (it is implied) to have achieved a kind of transcendence upon his death.

A Viking Age expedition arrives in North America, intending to subjugate or slaughter the native "Skræling" population. The party is itself wiped out by another native tribe, the only survivor being the Viking leader's son, who is adopted by a native woman. The boy is taken in by the local tribe and named "Ghost" for his paleness.

Fifteen years later, Ghost still lives among the tribe. Though he is socially accepted, he has yet to earn the status of a warrior. His romantic interest is Starfire, the daughter of the Pathfinder, an elderly chief of a neighboring tribe. The only remembrance he keeps of his heritage is his father's sword.

In an attack by a new group of Viking raiders, Ghost's village is destroyed and all its inhabitants killed, except a few tribesmen whom the attackers force into single combat. Viking leader Gunnar challenges Ghost, who is still in possession of his father's sword. He defeats Ulfar, cutting out his eye before escaping.

Ghost is pursued by the Vikings and receives an arrow wound. He reaches the neighboring tribe and is tended to by Pathfinder and his daughter. Ghost advises the villagers to flee and departs to take on the Vikings alone. He is joined by Jester, a mute admirer who refuses to leave his side, and Starfire, who leaves the tribe for him. They defeat a few Vikings and collect their arms and armour. Pathfinder goes after his daughter and joins the fight. Eventually, both Jester and Pathfinder are executed brutally, and Ghost and Starfire are captured. The Vikings threaten to torture Starfire if Ghost will not betray the location of the other villages. Ghost pretends to lead the Vikings to the tribe and kills most of them on the way, some drowning in a lake and others caught in an avalanche. Ghost eventually kills Gunnar in a duel on a cliff's edge

Ghost returns to Starfire with Pathfinder's necklace, thus making Starfire the new Pathfinder after her father. Ghost, now finally respected as the bravest of the tribe and one of their own, assumes his position watching over the coast in case the Vikings ever return.

To escape the heat of the city and a court sentence for malicious mischief, the East Side kids agree to visit a summer camp in the Adirondacks. En route, their car breaks down and they are reluctantly given accommodations in the home of Judge Malcolm Parker.

The Judge, under indictment for bribery, has much to fear. His life, as well as that of his niece Louise has been threatened by a gang of racketeers; his companion, Giles, has accused him of embezzling Louise's fortune; and his sinister housekeeper, Agnes, blames him for the death of her mistress, Leonora. The Judge's fears are compounded when he meets Knuckles Dolan, the boys' guardian, whom he had unjustly sentenced to death, only to have his verdict reversed and Knuckles exonerated.

Later that night, when Louise is kidnapped and the Judge found strangled, Giles and Simp, the Judge's bodyguard, accuse Knuckles of the murder, but the boys capture Simp and Giles and determine to find the murderer themselves. Muggs and Danny discover a secret panel in the library wall and enter a passage where they find Louise's unconscious body and glimpse the figure of a fleeing man. Knuckles captures the man, who identifies himself as Jim Harrison of the district attorney's office.

Amid the confusion, the real killer takes Louise captive, but the boys track him down and unmask Simp. Harrison then identifies the bodyguard as the triggerman seeking revenge on the Judge. With the crime solved, the boys can finally leave for their summer camp.

At Ryberg Instrument Corporation, engineer Cal Meacham has received a quartet of bead-like devices that are meant to replace the condensers that he ordered. Thinking it a joke, he tests them anyway and finds that they work just as well as what he had ordered. He orders more and with them gets a catalog filled with electronic apparatus completely unfamiliar to him. His interest piqued, he orders the parts necessary to build what the catalog calls an interociter.

When he turns the completed interociter on he is confronted by a man who invites him to join a group called Peace Engineers. Knowing that he would not refuse, the group sends a pilotless airplane to pick him up and take him to a small village/factory complex in a valley north of Phoenix, Arizona. He is greeted by Dr. Ruth Adams, a psychologist who seems to be afraid of something. Dr. Warner, the man he spoke with over the interociter, tells him that he will be in charge of the interociter assembly plant. He also meets Ole Swenberg, who was his roommate in college.

Six months later, he meets the Chief Engineer, Mr. Jorgasnovara, who describes the Peace Engineers in terms reminiscent of the Babbage Society in Michael F. Flynn’s novel ''In the Country of the Blind''. Later, he overhears Jorgasnovara's thoughts through the interociter in his laboratory. One night, he and Ruth discover that the interociters are being shipped out, not by truck, but by spaceship. Again overhearing Jorgasnovara's thoughts, Cal learns that the Peace Engineers are involved in an intergalactic war.

Cal believes that all of Earth should be participating in the war that the Peace Engineers have somehow gotten us into, so he gathers documents and samples and takes a small airplane and flies to Washington. Halfway there, he and his plane are snatched out of the air by a spaceship and taken to the Moon. There, Jorgasnovara tells Cal, Ruth, and Ole that Peace Engineers is actually run by his people, aliens called Llanna, and that the Llanna are engaged in a millennia-long, intergalactic war with aliens called Guarra. Earth is now being used in that war as certain small Pacific islands were used during World War II.

Returning to Earth, Cal, Ruth, and Ole find the plant being sabotaged. The Llannans decide to abandon it, but before they leave, Cal and Ruth discover that Ole is a Guarra sleeper agent. As a consequence of the interociter-mediated battle that destroys Ole and his non-human henchmen, Jorgasnovara also dies.

Cal and Ruth are taken to Jorgasnovara's home world and are told that Earth is to be abandoned completely, that the Guarra will destroy it, as they have destroyed so many other worlds. Cal protests, but the Llannan Council tells him that their war computers have predicted that they would not defend Earth. But the Guarran war computers would tell the Guarra the same thing, so, Cal points out to the council that the very best tactic is to do what the Guarra would never expect. The Llannans agree to defend Earth and Cal and Ruth look forward to returning home.

The Man Out of Time

The plot of "The Man Out of Time" comic book story and the ''Timecop'' film are very different, but share the same protagonist: Max Walker.

In the three-part comic book story, Walker is an operative of the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC), which operates in 2007 and polices changes to history being made by unlawful time travelers. The sarcastic and ill-tempered Walker was once married and the thought of his wife can bring him to tears, but her fate is not made clear. A TEC monitor called the Time Pool represents alterations to history as ripples or great waves. A TEC agent is sent back in time by being launched in a personal pod that shields them from the forces involved in time travel and acts like a protective cocoon if they materialize in the middle of a wall or over a body of water or into a hostile environment. Once the TEC agent arrives and leaves the pod, it automatically returns to the future and the agent may do so as well by simply activating a small device on their person. It is explained that time is "like gravity," so journeying to another time is difficult and requires a launch pod but returning a person to their native time period is easier because reality is ready to pull them back home.

"The Man Out of Time" features Walker in pursuit of John Adam Packer, a criminal who travels to 1933 to rob a South African mine of a huge diamond in the 1930s. When Walker arrives, he is surprised to find that Packer has brought a RamCo hunter/killer robot for security. With the robot buried beneath cave rubble, Walker retrieves Parker with the help of a local named Joseph M'Boto. Walker gives M'Boto the diamond as a thank you before leaving with Parker.

Returning to 2007, Walker is told that his trip caused a greater change to history than Parker's original journey and he realizes the robot must have still been operational, causing havoc to history with its later actions. To restore order, Walker returns to the mine and stops the machine's rampage, again with M'Boto's help. On his return to 2007, he learns that history is now back on track with only one minor ripple left as a result of his trip, nothing that would concern the TEC. Readers realize that Walker's presence allowed M'Boto to become wealthy and become a political activist who helped lead the end of racial segregation in South Africa in the 1950s.

Movie adaptation

The movie tie-in story is about a "time enforcement" officer who attempts to bring a rogue politician to justice who is using time travel to fund his presidential campaign. During the course of the film the officer discovers that the politician is also responsible for the earlier death of his wife, and numerous other previously unconnected crimes.

Manon (Jacinthe Laguë), Anne (Julie Deslauriers), Isa (Ingrid Falaise), Claudie (Brigitte Lafleur), and Sophie (Noemie Yelle) are all childhood friends. Ever since they were children, they would spend time at Sophie's cottage in Montreal. The five girls, now at the age of 17, return to the cottage as they have permission from their parents to spend the weekend on their own. The girls plan to host a party during the absence of their parents. Manon and Sophie depart to pick up groceries in preparation of the party. They do not have access to a car, so they decide to hitchhike with a stranger. Manon quickly develops a romantic interest for the stranger, while Sophie remains suspicious of his behavior. The party has begun, but Manon and Sophie have yet to return. The girls are having a blast, while Anne is worried about the safety of Manon and Sophie. Eventually, Isa takes a rowboat out with a boy in hopes to get some privacy. As the rowboat approaches land, Isa discovers Manon in the forest, stabbed and covered in blood. Sophie is missing. The boy brings Manon to safety, while Isa runs off to find Sophie.

15 years have passed since the incident. Manon is working as an administrator for a large firm. She expresses no interest in staff outings, nor does she express romantic interests towards men. She also avoids taking the elevator with any men, hence being uncomfortable in private places with them. Stéphane (Sylvain Carrier) enters the scene and invites Manon on a date, to which Manon accepts on the condition of being in a public space. Manon also refuses him from staying at her place for the night. Several days pass, and Manon begins to develop an intimate relationship with Stéphane.

Manon drives into a car wash, and recognizes the stranger that was responsible for her traumatic experience. She experiences an anxiety attack, rushes home, and locks her doors. Several flashbacks reveal that Sophie was chained to a tree and covered in blood. Manon collects and reviews the court files only to discover that the parole board granted the stranger, Richard Thibodeau (Peter Miller), conditional release. Manon then takes her medication to reduce her anxiety. Stéphane arrives unexpectedly, and discovers the court files which Manon was reviewing. He confesses his love for her, but she does not reciprocate.

Manon visits Sophie's parents to discuss the parole board's decision. Sophie's mother admits that she had pardoned Thibodeau because she was exhausted, and wanted to move forward. However, Sophie's father and Manon were in disagreement of her decision.

Manon returns home and invites Anne, who is now a mother, to her condo. Manon reveals that she had asked Sophie's parents for permission to return to the cottage, which was granted. She makes the decision to invite all of the girls on a trip to the cottage in hopes to leave her experience in the past and move on from her trauma. At this time, Isa is a model in New York, and Claudie is a chef in Montreal. All the girls agree to accompany Manon to the cottage in hopes to confront their past.

A flashback reveals that Sophie and Isa were best friends, and that Sophie was supposed to join Isa in New York. The girls arrive at the cottage, and explore the area in silence. Back in Montreal, Stéphane studies the case files in the library and uncovers Manon's past. A flashback confirms that Thibodeau had raped, beaten, and stabbed Manon.

After the girls have a heated discussion on Thibodeau's release, Manon spots Isa on a rowboat returning to the crime scene. It is revealed that Isa had found Sophie's lifeless body, stabbed and chained to a tree. Thibodeau had forced Manon to witness him stab and rape Sophie. Manon couldn't handle the trauma and attempted to escape, which resulted in Thibodeau murdering Sophie as a consequence for her actions. Manon faces her fear, and pursues Isa. Anne and Claudie follow along. Once they arrive at the scene, they remain relatively silent.

Another day passes by, and the girls become more comfortable and accepting of their experiences. Anne, Claudie, and Isa return to Montreal and witness the parole board's decision on Thibodeau's release upon parole. Manon leaves a tape for Thibodeau, expressing her thoughts and feelings towards him and her freedom of the trauma. Manon returns to Stéphane, and becomes more accepting towards her romantic and sexual relationship with him.

Police assistant Lance Boyle is a childish detective who is lumbered with worthless police cases. However, after several murders in a nearby wood that concern Killer Tomatoes, Lance finds himself working alongside Kennedy Johnson, a Tomatologist, to solve the murders.

Nearby, Professor Mortimer Gangreen (John Astin) has begun using subliminal mind control on his talk show, disguised as talk show host Jeronahew. After kidnapping members of the Press and Media, Gangreen and his assistant Igor plot to use his brainwashed Press members, as well as the Subliminal Mind control, to overpower the human race and make the world a planet run by himself and his killer tomatoes.

Following countless killer tomatoes attacks, Lance and Kennedy finally reach Gangreen's hideout, where they must pit themselves against killer tomatoes, brainwashed newsreaders and a giant Bacon, Lettuce and Human sandwich, of which Kennedy may be a part. With help from FT, (Fuzzy Tomato, from ''Return of the Killer Tomatoes'') Lance rescues Kennedy and Gangreen is defeated, left at the mercy of the hungry killer tomatoes.

The novel alternates perspectives between H.G. Wells and a character initially identified only as "Stevenson." In the first chapter, Stevenson has sex with a prostitute in a 19th-century London alley and then murders her. In the next chapter, Wells is introduced showing off his brand new time machine to a group of men, including Stevenson. When police arrive to announce that they have identified Jack the Ripper as Stevenson, Stevenson uses the time machine to escape, and Wells follows him. Wells finds himself in the future and befriends a young bank teller named Amy Robbins. Robbins is unaware of Wells' identity and 19th century provenance and believes him to be just a quirky old-fashioned gentleman. As Stevenson murders several women, Wells pursues him while hampered by a love affair with Robbins, to whom he does not dare tell the truth. When Wells is finally forced to confess to Robbins who he is and what he is really doing, she terminates their relationship. But Stevenson targets her next, and Wells rescues her and incapacitates Stevenson in a dramatic climax.

In the prologue, quotes from the Book of Genesis are shown and narrated, describing God's decision to wipe out humanity.

Pilot David Randall flies top-secret photographs from South African astronomer Dr. Emery Bronson to Dr. Cole Hendron in the United States. Hendron, with the assistance of his daughter Joyce, confirms their worst fears: Bronson has discovered that a rogue star named Bellus, accompanied by an Earth-sized planet named Zyra, is on a collision course with Earth.

Hendron warns the United Nations that the end of the world is little more than eight months away, with a close pass first by Zyra, before Bellus destroys the Earth nineteen days later. He pleads for the construction of "arks" to transport a lucky few to Zyra in the faint hope that humanity can be saved from extinction. With other scientists scoffing at his claims, his proposal is rejected.

Wealthy humanitarians arrange for a lease on a former proving ground to build an ark. To finance the construction, Hendron meets wheelchair-using business magnate Sidney Stanton. Stanton demands the right to select the passengers in exchange for his money, but Hendron insists that he is not qualified to make those choices; all he can buy is a seat aboard the ark. Stanton capitulates.

Joyce tells her father she is attracted to Randall, so he finds an excuse to keep him around, much to the annoyance of her boyfriend, medical doctor Tony Drake. As Bellus nears, martial law is declared and residents in coastal regions are evacuated to inland cities. Groups in other nations begin to build their own spaceships.

Zyra makes a close approach first, causing massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis that wreak havoc around the world. Several people are killed at the camp, including Dr. Bronson. Afterward, Drake and Randall travel by helicopter to drop off supplies to people in distress in the surrounding area. When Randall gets off to rescue a little boy stranded on a rooftop in a flooded area, Drake flies away, but reconsiders and returns.

As the day of doom approaches, the passengers are selected by lottery, though Hendron reserves seats for himself, Stanton, Joyce, Drake, pilot Dr. George Frey, and Randall, for his daughter's sake. He also includes the young boy who was rescued, raising the number of passengers to 45. Randall, feeling he lacks any needed skills, pretends to draw a lottery number, but Hendron knows better. For Joyce's sake, Drake tells Randall that Frey has a "heart condition" that may kill him during liftoff, convincing Randall he is needed as the co-pilot.

The cynical Stanton fears what the desperate lottery losers will do, so he stockpiles weapons. When a young man turns in his winning number because his sweetheart was not selected, Ferris, Stanton's much-abused assistant, claims it at gunpoint, only to be shot dead by Stanton. Shortly before blastoff, many of the lottery losers riot, seizing Stanton's weapons to try to force their way aboard. Hendron triggers the launch prematurely while he and Stanton are still outside, so the ship will consume less fuel. With an effort born of ultimate desperation, Stanton stands up and walks in a futile attempt to board the departing spaceship.

The crew are rendered unconscious by the g-force of acceleration, and do not witness Earth's collision with Bellus. When Randall comes to and sees Dr. Frey already awake and piloting the ship, he realizes he has been deceived.

As the spaceship enters Zyra's atmosphere, the fuel runs out; Randall takes control and glides it to a safe landing. The crew find Zyra to be habitable. David Randall and Joyce Hendron walk hand-in-hand down the ramp with their fellow survivors as a new day dawns. In the background is an artificial structure.

Mike Bronco believes a degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale is a ticket out of life in a trailer park. He is determined to rise above his humble southern Illinois roots and broken home to become a clinical family therapist. His best friend, Lynard "Lennie" Lake, has a simpler vision for the future. He is a firecracker enthusiast whose notion of the American dream is trucking school.

One day, fun-loving Lennie convinces the serious-minded Mike to shoplift "Near Beer" and enjoy a carefree afternoon of kicking back. The seemingly harmless exploit snowballs into an exploding Vega (an ill-conceived distraction), injuring store owner Ken Kenworthy and enraging his aggressive son Rickey. The two offenders land in Jackson County Court and Mike's dreams of an exodus to the middle class and Lenny's trucking career are threatened. As this transpires, Mike's mother, Linda Bronco, finds she has plenty to contemplate beyond paying rent. She still grapples with how her youthful indiscretions cost her a career in nursing; her would-be Pro-Wrestler husband, Jim, abruptly leaves and she loses her job at a local nursing home. Although her life's burdens hit Linda hard, Hell will freeze over before she allows the worst to befall Mike and Lenny. Even with no money at their disposal, the Broncos and Lennie believe at first that it will take a competent, sober lawyer to keep Mike's record clean and college-ready.

Next, the boys devise an ironic solution: a few trailer burglaries to raise the money to hire lawyer Ron Lake, Lennie's oily, turquoise-laden, ex-con grandfather, to take their case. When Linda catches the boys in the middle of a burglary, she steadfastly resolves to help them out, provided their spoils will finance Mike's college tuition. As the situation grows more desperate, the boys' worst fears are realized when Linda's 20-something boyfriend comes along for the ride. The boyfriend, Brian Ross, is the town sheriff's son and a former high school football star and bully. As if it were not bad enough that Brian resumed tormenting and menacing Mike and Lenny, his ceaseless passion for ex-flame Sandy Lake complicates their already-complex plan. Sandy, who just happens to be Ron's post-adolescent trophy wife (and Lennie's step-grandmother to boot), has bad intentions in mind for the boys. She sees their predicament as an easy opportunity to launch her own manipulative agenda.

During their bizarre journey to redemption and the promise of a better life, the boys throw all caution and common sense to the wind. With Mike's mom in tow, they execute a series of outrageously-plotted trailer park burglaries. With bigger threats and growing confidence, the boys move on to bigger hits at the nursing home and a fast food restaurant. Then things really spin out of control with several repeat visits to court, massive explosions, guns, fire, and to top it all off, a spectacular car/trailer chase with $250,000 in loot at stake. Not surprisingly, they are also hurled into the paths of the most colorful characters in Sunrise, Illinois, including: Suzi and Suzy, a pair of damaged-but-lovable townies; the crusty and outspoken Judge Pike; Carlton Rasmeth, an inept alcoholic defense counselor; Machado, an ambitious right wing prosecutor; not to mention a host of good ole boys and girls who have various plans for Mike and Lenny that have nothing to do with higher education.

Despite the insanity, Mike and Lennie learn significant growing-up lessons in the most hilarious ways. While they tear through the highways, cornfields, and courthouses of America's heartland, their bonds of friendship and trust grow stronger. Through zany trials and instances of mistaken identity, they endure many indignities, life-threatening situations, temptations, and embarrassments. But they survive, determined to emerge with dignity, self-respect, and an unyielding sense of humor.

After spending a night in jail for attacking a burglar, Rich and Mike (playing themselves) decide that the only way to avoid what they perceive to be the warped justice of the legal system in the UK is to become outlaws and live like cowboys in 21st century Britain, riding out of London on horse-back.

Ina Montecillo (Ai-Ai delas Alas) meets Tony (Edu Manzano), whom she considers "the man of her dreams". They both have four children, but Tony dies shortly after falling from a stool. Trying to find a replacement father for her children, she meets Alfredo (Tonton Gutierrez), and they have four more children. Alfredo dies after falling from a pedestrian overpass while fleeing with a crowd from a cinema due to false alarms shouted by an intoxicated patron, and Ina meets Kiko (Jestoni Alarcon), who fathers her other four children. On their wedding day, Kiko gets electrocuted and Ina decides to stop finding another husband.

One morning, Ina wakes up finding her children Juan (Marvin Agustin), Tudis (Nikki Valdez), Tri (Carlo Aquino), Por (Heart Evangelista), Pip (Alwyn Uytingco), Six (Marc Acueza), Seven (Shaina Magdayao), Cate (Serena Dalrymple), Shammy (Jiro Manio), Ten-Ten (Yuuki Kadooka), Connie and Sweet either troubled, problematic, panicking, fighting, or confused. Later on, she finds out that her family might go poor, and so works several jobs from construction to selling bootleg DVDs just to make ends meet.

She is reminded by Por of her début, while Juan begs her permission to let him find work. Ina agrees, but finds Juan's chores at home very confusing. Ina is told by her ex-driver Bruno, who reveals he is gay, that she can earn ₱2,000 a night at a strip club. Meanwhile, Juan meets his high school girlfriend Jenny (Kaye Abad) working at an amusement park, where he decides to apply. Tudis quits her job and tries to pursue her desired career as an artist. Tri tries to impress his girlfriend Gretchen (Angelica Panganiban) and her parents (Pinky Amador and Mandy Ochoa) with his intelligence. Por tries to convince her crush, Jeffrey (John Prats), to be escort her at her début. Pip, who is a closeted homosexual, spies on his crush doing his exercise routine. Six invites their mother to a mass and retreat while Seven was assigned to lead a school programme on ''Bakit Natatangi Ang Aking Ina'' ("Why My Mother Is Unique"). Sometime later, Shammy tries to protect his reputation of being uncircumcised when he becomes a victim of bullying by Nhel's brother. Pip prevents them from fighting and when Nhel arrives, he accidentally mentions that Shammy is uncircumcised, causing Shammy to hate him.

Things take a turn for the worse as Ina causes more problems for her kids: she prevents Juan from marrying Jenny, while Tudis refuses to help her in job-seeking. She exposes her life as a stripper to Tri, Gretchen, and Gretchen's parents, which causes Tri and Gretchen to split. She unsuccessfully fulfills Por's million-peso début and also learns that Pip is gay, then ruins Six's "church retreat" after thinking it was a "trick or treat" event. Seven hasn't told her of the programme yet because she doesn't want to be humiliated. Cate reveals that Ten-Ten is deaf and Shammy contracts a high fever after a circumcision by an unlicensed doctor. Finally, Ten-Ten goes missing. Ina rushes in a taxi to Shammy in hospital while still in her stripper outfit, causing her cabbie Eddie (Dennis Padilla) to fall in love with her. During their subsequent family meeting, she emotionally explains to the children that she took on several jobs not because it was her obligation, but because she loves them. Her complicated speech has the opposite effect, with Juan deciding to run away with Jenny. Rowena (Eugene Domingo) comforts the careworn Ina, who thinks of how to solve everything.

After quitting her job at the club, Ina takes a bus ride where she notices a suicide bomber in front her. She alerts the passengers and tells them to evacuate while she fights the bomber. Gaining the upper hand, Ina is able to jump out of the bus just in time as the bomb detonates, killing only the bomber while she sustains minor injuries upon landing. As news of the incident flashes on television, her family arrives at the hospital and mourns a corpse under a sheet. Ina, however emerges a few moments later in a wheelchair. She eventually fixes everything: she permits Juan, who returned, to date Jenny but not wed her; she convinces Tudis to get her job back and Gretchen to reunite with Tri; she accepts Pip's sexuality while Six forgives her; Seven finishes her programme; she forgives Shammy, who recovers from his infection, while she finds the still-deaf Ten-Ten in a local church.

Por meanwhile finally celebrates her début, and as Eddie snaps a photo of the Montecillos, the rocket in his back pocket ignites and sends him into the sky. Ina's voiceover explains that Eddie survived the explosion and they eventually married but they couldn't have anymore children after the rocket exploded in his trousers. In the end credits, the family is shown teaching Ten-Ten sign language together, so that he can communicate with the family.

Gabriel Noone, a popular gay New York City radio show host, is dealing with a separation from his partner, Jess. Noone is given a memoir written by teenager Pete Logand, which chronicles the many years of sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents and their friends. Diagnosed with AIDS, the youth has been adopted by Donna Logand, the social worker who handled his case.

Noone begins a telephone relationship with the boy and Donna. He and Pete become increasingly close and form a father-son relationship, much to the dismay of Jess, especially after he speaks to Donna and suspects that she was impersonating Pete in some of the telephone conversations. Noone's personal secretary Anna adds fuel to the fire by discussing her research into people who fabricate elaborate stories to get attention. Determined to prove the boy exists and his story is true, Noone decides to pay a surprise visit to Pete in his hometown in rural Wisconsin. Noone discovers the return address on Pete's correspondence is actually a mail drop. Soon after, while eating in a local diner, he overhears another patron and recognizes her voice as that of Donna. He is stunned to learn that she is blind and uses a guide dog. Noone follows her home and Donna senses he has followed her. She invites him into her home and talks openly about Pete, who she says is currently in the hospital undergoing tests. She assures him he can visit the boy the following day, then suddenly becomes angry and tells him she will not allow him to meet Pete. Increasingly suspicious, Noone contacts all the hospitals in Madison, the location of the nearest facilities, but none have the boy registered as a patient.

Noone's paranoia about the boy's existence grows and, hoping to find proof of his existence, he breaks into Donna's home. A police officer arrests him for breaking and entering and then, mistakenly believing Noone to be one of the boy's abusers, attacks him with a stun baton before taking him to the station. Noone convinces the police he meant no harm and is released, only to find Donna waiting for him with the news that Pete is dead; also, that he was in a Milwaukee hospital, and was never in Madison. Distressed that Noone doesn't believe her, Donna collapses in the middle of a road and tries to hold him with her in the path of an oncoming truck. She then moves everything out of her home and disappears before the police can question her. Noone is now convinced that the boy is a figment of the deranged woman's imagination.

In response to a phone call from Donna, Noone goes to a motel where she was staying, and finds Pete's stuffed rabbit and a videotape under a blanket. He plays the video of a child, who seems to be Pete, but who could have been anyone. The phone rings and the caller claims to be the boy (but sounds exactly like Donna now), waiting for his mother at the airport. The caller ends the conversation after Noone asks what happened in Donna's past and how she became blind and that Donna should get help. Noone just watches the video, deep in thought.

Noone returns to Manhattan and uses his experience to create ''The Night Listener'', a new radio story. In the final scene, Donna is searching for a new home in a coastal town, telling the realtor she needs it for herself and her son, who has just lost his leg but will be released the next day. She has drastically changed her appearance and no longer has a guide dog or dark glasses, revealing her blindness was also an act. Gabriel concludes his show for the night by saying, "As for Pete, there's a line in the Velveteen Rabbit that reads... Real isn't how you were made. It's the thing that happens to you. I'm Gabriel Noone. Goodnight".

In the opening scene, Lord Reggie Hastings slips a green carnation into his evening coat before attending a dinner party at Mrs Windsor's house in Belgrave Square. He converses there with Esmé Amarinth, a married playwright; and Lady Locke (cousin to Mrs Windsor), a young widow who has only recently returned to England after a ten-year absence.

Some days later, Lord Reggie, Mr Amarinth and Lady Locke (together with her nine-year-old son Tommy), are guests at Mrs. Windsor's countryside cottage near Dorking. An additional guest is the mysterious Madame Valtesi whose one good action, she claims, was to marry the only man not in love with her when young. Lady Locke is initially attracted by Lord Reggie, but becomes increasingly disturbed by his wearing of the green carnation and what it symbolises about his flippant attitude to life. Lord Reggie tells her that Esmé invented the flower, and that it is only worn by a few people who are followers of "the higher philosophy".

During their stay in the village of Chenecote, Lord Reggie composes an anthem on a passage from the Song of Songs. Together with Mr Amarinth, he flatters the High church curate Mr Smith into allowing him to coach the village choir in singing it at Sunday service and directing them from the church's organ. At the village fete on Monday, held in Mrs Windsor's garden, Mr Amarinth assembles the local schoolchildren and addresses them incomprehensibly in a lecture on "The art of folly", to the outrage of their National school teachers.

Though Lord Reggie has no inclination to marry, he has been advised by Mr Amarinth that the good natured and wealthy Lady Locke would make him a useful wife. She is fond of him, yet has realised by now how under the influence of Mr Amarinth Lord Reggie remains, as well as the incompatibility between him and herself and the destabilising influence Reggie is on the hero-worshipping Tommy. At the end of the novel, therefore, she firmly rejects his proposal, telling Lord Reggie that, as well as knowing it would only be a marriage of convenience to him, she could never accept a man whose whole behaviour and conversation is only an imitative pose.

Lady Locke then decides to take Tommy to the seaside, while Mr Amarinth and the disgruntled Lord Reggie cut short their week in the country and return together by train to London.

Bill Willis, a successful American novelist and World War II veteran, is living in Paris in the 1960s with his family. He is much loved by his free-spirited unpredictable wife Marcella. The couple, popular at the Paris cocktail party circuit, has a six-year-old daughter Channe (short for Charlotte Anne). Marcella yearns to have another child, but a series of miscarriages has made that difficult. However, the family circle expands when a six-year old French boy, Benoit, is brought to their home for adoption. The child's biological mother, a beautiful young single mother, has been unable to care for him and Benoit has been shipped through so many orphanages and foster homes that he initially does not unpack his suitcase. Having feared rejection, the little boy is surprised by the love he receives in his new surroundings. After Benoit becomes acclimated to his new family, he asks that his name be changed to Billy after his adopted father.

Billy's presence prompts the young Channe to turn to her protective Portuguese nanny, Candida. Initially jealous of her new brother, Channe quickly warms up to Billy inviting him to share her bed after he has wet his. Marcella physically confronts a stern teacher for the punitive measures she has taken against her son. Channe notices the culture clash at her bilingual school, the flirtatious circle of friends around her parents, the vulgarity of American children who come visit and an encounter with a budding French rapist who tries to seduce Channe with the help of large snails. (He insists that she take off her shirt and let them crawl on her skin.)

Billy and Channe become teenagers. A strong friendship develops between Channe and Francis Fortescue, a flamboyantly effeminate youth with a passion for opera. The fatherless Francis lives with his eccentric expatriate British mother. He helps Channe test her wings as a nonconformist. Fear of love makes Candida rejects a proposal of marriage from her long time suffering African boyfriend, Mamadou. As Channe begins to be interested in other boys, she distances herself from Francis who confesses to her that he had a little crush on her. The family's French idyll is disrupted when Bill Willis plans a return to the United States because he wants American doctors to treat his heart condition

The family moves to New England during the 1970s. Their future is threatened by Bill's declining health, Marcella's alcoholism, and the struggles of Channe and Billy to adapt to American high school. Billy, awkward and very reserved, is bullied at school. Channe drifts from boy to boy giving sex in exchange for acceptance until she falls for Keith, a fellow student who becomes her steady boyfriend. Immersed in the writing of a new novel, Bill is worried about the future of his family when he would be gone. The irregularity of Billy's adoption comes to haunt him. The boy's biological mother had him at fifteen from a relationship with a cousin and wrote a diary while pregnant. Bill has kept the diary all these years in anticipation of the day when his adopted son would want to know the truth about his origins. Channe's relationship with Keith fades away as she helps her sick father write his novel. Bill's death affects his wife and children deeply. Billy comes out of his reserve to take care of the house and helps his grief-stricken mother. Marcella, as her husband had wanted, gives Billy the diary to read, but he is uninterested. One evening, Channe, Marcella and Billy put a record on and begin to dance. Billy takes a quick peek at the diary.

Victor, the youngest and largest of the Carboni brothers (Cosmo and Lenny are the other two), becomes a local wrestler (named Kid Salami) at the request of Cosmo, who thinks there is big money to be made.

Lenny agrees to manage his career. They look to Victor to win enough matches so they can get out of Hell's Kitchen for good. (Victor wants to marry his Asian girlfriend and live on a houseboat they plan to buy in New Jersey.)

Each brother has his own style. Cosmo is a hustler and con-artist, always looking for the next easy buck. Lenny is the former war hero, now an undertaker who came back to the neighborhood with a limp and a bitter attitude. Victor is a gawky, strong, dumb yet sincere hulk of a man, who leaves his job hauling ice up tenement stairways once he is persuaded to become a wrestler.

Initially, it is Cosmo that dominates the proceedings, aggressively encouraging Victor to wrestle against the wishes of his girlfriend. Lenny is at first unsure of all this, and constantly tries to warn off Victor, reminding him that he could get hurt.

As the story progresses, the roles begin to reverse. Cosmo becomes concerned for Victor's welfare and feels guilty about getting him into this while Lenny becomes ever more keen to exploit Victor as far as he can. Lenny seems to undergo a complete personality change, losing his cool demeanor and becoming an aggressive, manipulative high roller.

In the end, Victor wins a big wrestling match in a rainstorm and the brothers are reunited.

The film follows Chad Warren (Tony Leech), a young senior in high school, who must face the illness of his brother, David (Jason Rogers) during the summer.

While David is diagnosed with cancer, Chad must compete in a huge track and field competition to get a scholarship at Angelo State. David also insists on Chad mending his relationship with their father, who recently walked out on their family.

The miniseries tells the story of Joan of Arc, from her birth in 1412 until her death in 1431.

Joan of Arc is born in 1412 in the village of Domrémy in the war zone of Northern France. During her youth, she often witnesses the horrors of war, and when 11 years old she starts hearing divine voices. Her spirit is kept high by the legend of the Maiden of Lorraine. This says that a young maiden one day will unite the divided country and lead the people to freedom.

At 17, Joan's village is invaded and burned, and her blind best friend, Emile, killed. She begs God to tell her what she said to deserve this, and the visions come back, telling her to travel to Charles, (rightful heir to the throne) and reunite France under his crown.

Joan leaves her small village to find Charles. She jumps into a livestock cart that is supposedly being taken to the king. Instead she is taken to Vaucouleurs, where she is denied help to get to Charles. Here she finds refuge with a nun, who helps her unite the people of Vaucoleurs and build defenses against the English and Burgundian invaders. With this unification and defensework, rumor starts spreading that Joan is the Maid of Lorraine.

Although Joan doesn't seem to believe that she is The Maid, she goes along with it to give the people hope. After bringing the people together, the lord of Vaucouleurs finally gives her the tools she needs to find Charles.

The game stars a fifth-grade student named Geo Stelar, who can be renamed by the player, and his FM-ian partner, Omega-Xis. Geo has been mourning the disappearance of his father Kelvin after the explosion of the space station ''Peace'' three years ago, and as a result, he has not been attending school. A group of children from Geo's class constantly urge Geo to attend school, but he always refuses.

One day, Geo comes home and finds Aaron Boreal, Kelvin's co-worker at the AMAKEN Space Agency, conversing with Geo's mother, Hope. Aaron gives Geo the Visualizer, a glasses-like device that allows humans to see the EM Wave World. Geo goes outside to sulk on an observation deck over the city when he puts the Visualizer on. Using it, he sees Omega-Xis, who recognizes Geo as Kelvin's son and quickly performs an Electromagnetic Wave Change with him, transforming into the ''Star Force'' version of Mega Man.

Omega-Xis is considered a traitor by the FM King because he has stolen the mysterious Andromeda Key, and he also claims to know about the events leading up to Kelvin's disappearance. Geo agrees to work with Omega-Xis to protect the key, and thus, Omega-Xis resides within Geo's Transer much like Navis do in PETs. He is aided in his fight against the FMs by the three satellite Admins, Pegasus, Leo, and Dragon, who are also energy-based aliens.

The game is presented episodically in this fashion, following a basic formula: enemy FMs descend to Earth and target humans with conflicted lives, promising them the power to turn things around. However, unlike the merge between Geo and Omega-Xis, these humans merge somewhat involuntarily and lose control of their bodies during the conversion. Mega Man has to defeat them in order to rescue the innocent human from the enemy FM's control. At the end of the game Mega Man has to fight the planet destroying war machine Andromeda. However, beating it does not end the game, for there are other paths left to complete such as completing the card library. The player can also become brothers with Zack by talking to him in vista point after the game and pulsing into the piano in the school then talk to him again. In addition, if the player puts in a Megaman Battle Network game and pulses into the dog house, they can embark on another journey for the BN Buster, one of the strongest Mega Buster upgrades. Finally, you can battle several optional SP Navis not previously fought throughout the storyline; these include Cancer Bubble, Wolf Woods and Crown Thunder.

For the first few "chapters" of the game, Geo is withdrawn and has trouble allowing himself to trust others. Later in the story however, he finds kindred spirits in a young pop idol Sonia Strumm, and a boy named Patrick Sprigs, who, like Geo, have lost loved ones and gain FM-ian partners. He forms a strong bond with Sonia, forming his first "BrotherBand" with her, and soon begins to open up to others, eventually becoming best friends with Pat. However, Pat is revealed to suffer split-personality disorder. The cause of this was his being abandoned by his parents, who left him to fend for himself amongst the mountains of garbage on Dream Island. As he grew, he was desperate for some sort of companionship but he was never accepted by anyone, so he created a friend within himself which he named "Rey", his darker side. Pat and his cruel "evil twin" transform into Gemini Spark and reveal they were just using Geo to obtain the Andromeda key the FM-ians failed to.

Geo's spirit is crushed, and he reveals that after he lost his father he decided he'd rather not bond with anyone if it meant he might lose that person too and he cuts his ties to all his friends. Omega-Xis leaves, disappointed in Geo for reverting to his old ways after making so much progress. Soon after, Aaron Boreal calls Geo to AMAKEN claiming he has made contact with Kelvin Stelar's space station. Only to find it has been seized by the FM-ian King who is on his way to destroy the Earth and feed the souls of Humanity to Andromeda. Before Geo leaves, Aaron tells him the reason his father created the BrotherBand, the reason he searched the stars to find neighboring life forms was because he believed that bonds with others were the key to a better world, even a better universe. He wanted his son to grow up in a world where he would not have to fear anyone. Geo's faith in his friends, humanity and himself is restored, and he sets out to find Omega-Xis. The two are again confronted by Gemini Spark, but Pat interferes to save Geo and allow him to reach the space station. Upon reaching the station in his wave form, Omega-Xis reveals to Geo that he knew Kelvin Stelar before coming to earth, but converted him into a wave form so the astronaut could escape the king's wrath. At this point, Kelvin's spirit could be anywhere in the universe, but it is not likely Geo will ever be reunited with his Dad. Geo is undaunted and remains hopeful. He soon meets the King and must kill Andromeda before the earth is lost forever. He defeats Andromeda but spares the King, following his father's dream to establish peace with other life. The king tells Geo his name is Cepheus, but asks Geo how he could possibly trust one from another world, for he never has. Eventually, he is convinced that he and Geo are kindred spirits and must both set out to make their parts of the universe a better place.

Geo is ready to return to earth, but the station begins falling apart and he is cut off from the wave road he used to reach the station in the first place and he is forced to escape via a derelict escape pod. For days he and Omega-Xis drift through space, doomed to die on this spacecraft and be lost in the void forever but just as Geo is ready to give up hope, somehow, from the endless vastness of space, his father's spirit is finally able to reach him. Geo is confronted by his father in a dream where he tells Geo he must hold on to those he loves most and as long as he keeps believing in them, Kelvin shall always watch over him, no matter how far apart they are.

At that moment, Geo's friends, even Pat, have gathered at Geo's favorite spot to call him back home. The strength of their bonds cause all their BrotherBands to converge into a beam that connects with Geo's space pod and miraculously saves him. Geo simply watches the earth draw closer as he is brought home during the game's credits, never to be the boy he used to be again.

In the wake of rising criminality and terrorist activities in Japan against Japanese nationals, the Japanese National Police Agency has no choice but to authorize the mobilization of a special Counter-terrorist Motorcycle unit consisting of reformed convicts, ranging from simple thugs, individuals forced into prison for simple petty trouble and former Yakuza henchmen and leaders to combat armed criminals and terrorists.

Hana Tsukishima is a country boy who recently moved to city. He is a good guy, ingenuous and honest, but he is also very strong. His goal is to become the leader of Suzuran High. He and his friends encounter and fight many other gangs and rival schools, led by clan-logic and strength hierarchy.

The film opens on an audience watching a lavish 1929 Broadway show, featuring a giant gold mine production number ("Song of the Gold Diggers"). Famous guitarist Nick Lucas sings "Painting the Clouds with Sunshine", which climaxes on stage with a huge art deco revolving sun.

Backstage, the star of the show (Ann Pennington) fights over Nick with another girl. Also introduced are a group of chorus girls who are 'man hungry'. They are all looking for love and money, but are not sure which is the more important. They are visited by a faded star who is reduced to selling cosmetic soap. They gossip about how they all want a man with plenty of money, so they do not end up the same way.

Businessman Stephen Lee (Conway Tearle) angrily forbids his nephew Wally (William Bakewell) to marry Violet, one of the showgirls. A corpulent lawyer friend, Blake (Albert Gran), advises him to befriend the showgirl first before making a decision. The showgirls are friends who stick together, and the most raucous girl called Mabel (Winnie Lightner) takes a fancy to Blake, calling him 'sweetie' and showing her appreciation by singing him a song ("Mechanical Man").

That evening, they all visit a huge nightclub. Mabel ends up on a table singing another song to Blake, "Keeping the Wolf from the Door", before jumping into his lap. Showgirl Jerry (Nancy Welford) moves the party to her apartment. Everyone gets drunk and after seeing Ann Pennington dance on the kitchen table, Lee decides he is 'getting to like these showgirls'. Blake says he is 'losing his mind or just plain mad'. Keeping the fun going, Lucas sings "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Complications come thick and fast after a balloon game, with both Blake and Lee falling under the spell of Mabel and Jerry. The party ends with Lucas singing "Go to Bed" and Jerry contriving to get Lee back after everyone has left. She gets him more drunk whilst tipping her own drinks away when he is not looking. Her aim is to get Lee to agree to allow Wally to marry. To do this, she lies and is shown up by her own mother, who accidentally finds them together.

Next morning, Jerry feels disgraced. Mabel has been given an extra line for the show "I am the spirit of the ages and the progress of civilization", but cannot get the words right. Lucas is told off for singing poor songs and sings another "What will I do without you". Ann Pennington fights with another showgirl and hurts her eye. Jerry is asked to take her place as the star of the evening performance. Mabel receives a proposal of marriage from Blake, but worries about her extra line.

The show starts with Nick Lucas reprising "Tiptoe Through the Tulips"' with full orchestra in a huge stage set that shows girl tulips in a huge greenhouse. Backstage, Uncle Steve comes back to give his consent to his nephew and to tell Jerry he wants to marry her.

The finale starts with Jerry leading the "Song of the Gold Diggers" against a huge art deco backdrop of Paris at night. Various acrobats and girls litter the stage as all the songs are reprised in a fast moving, lavish production number. Finally, male choristers lift Mabel into the air, whereupon she strikes a pose resembling the Statue of Liberty and exclaims, "I am . . . I am . . . Oh, darn it, I've forgotten that second line!" The music swells, and the film comes to its glorious end.

With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show ''Phantom Sweetheart'' seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. The cast includes William Bakewell as the head usher eager to get his sweetheart, box-office girl Sally O'Neil, noticed as a leading girl. Betty Compson plays the temperamental star and Arthur Lake the whiny young male lead. Louise Fazenda is the company's eccentric comedian. Joe E. Brown plays the part of a mean comedian who constantly argues with Arthur Lake.

In Nelsonville, Ohio, in 1956, the relationship between the introverted, clumsy Jonathan Bellah and the nonconformist, extroverted Eugene "Gene" Harbrough develops. Jonathan's main objective is to win over the sexy Marilyn McCauley, in spite of his shyness. Gene has his own love life to maintain with his crush, Bunny Miller, who reciprocates his feelings, as well as counseling Jonathan on how to attract women. Gene also has to defend Jonathan and himself from the wealthy class bully, Kenny, Bunny's jealous jock boyfriend, while trying to work out a borderline relationship with his widowed father, who has zero tolerance for his often wild escapades.

The opening scene is inspired by "The Kiss", a short story by Spanish post-romanticist writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and by Francisco Goya's painting ''The Third of May 1808''. Toledo, 1808. The city has been occupied by French Napoleonic troops. A firing squad executes a small group of Spanish rebels who cry out "Long live chains!" or "Death to the ''gabachos''!" – a Spanish pejorative term for "Frenchmen". The troops are encamped in a Catholic church which they desecrate by drinking, singing, and eating the communion wafers. The captain caresses a statue of Doña Elvira de Castañeda and is knocked unconscious by the statue of her husband, Don Pedro López de Ayala. In revenge, the captain exhumes Doña Elvira's body to find her face has not decomposed; there is a suggestion of intended necrophilia.

Cut to the present day where a nanny is reading the voice-over from a book whilst seated on a park bench. The children in her care are given some pictures by a strange man in the park. There are implications of child abduction or pedophilia. Cut to a close-up of a spider and the interior of a bourgeois apartment where a man is "fed up with symmetry" as he rearranges his mantelpiece. The children arrive home and show the pictures to their parents who are shocked that the girls have such images. The parents are disgusted and yet erotically stimulated by the images. When we see the images, they are revealed as picture postcards of French architecture. The parents then let the children keep the pictures and dismiss the nanny. At bedtime, the husband cannot sleep as he is kept awake by a cockerel, a watch-carrying woman, a postman and an emu wandering through his bedroom.

In the next scene, the husband visits his doctor, who dismisses these nighttime experiences as apparitions despite the fact that the husband has physical evidence in the form of a letter from the nocturnal postman. The evidence is never considered as the doctor's nurse interrupts the conversation to tell her employer that she must visit her sick father. The nurse drives through a rainy night, meeting a military tank on the road that is apparently hunting foxes. The soldiers tell her that the road ahead is blocked. The nurse drives to an isolated hotel.

A storm breaks as the nurse checks in at the small rural hotel. Some Carmelite monks are also staying at the hotel. She takes supper in her room while a flamenco dancer and guitarist perform in an adjacent room. The monks interrupt her as she is dressing for bed. They offer to use a holy effigy and prayer to assist her sick father, they begin to pray. Time has passed and the monks are playing a game of poker with the nurse and the hotel manager, gambling with holy relics, smoking and drinking alcohol.

That same night, some new guests arrive at the hotel: a young man and his aunt. The young nephew has brought his aunt to the hotel for an incestuous affair. They retire to their room, the elderly aunt confesses that she is a virgin, when the nephew pulls back the sheets to look at her naked body, she has the body of a young woman. The nephew is refused by his aunt and leaves his room to join another couple (a hatter and his female assistant) for a drink. The nurse and the four monks are also invited into the hatter's room. While the guests are socializing, the hatter's assistant dons a dominatrix outfit with a whip. The hatter, who is wearing bottomless trousers, proceeds to be masochistically flagellated by his assistant in front of the other guests who are shocked and leave. The nephew returns to his aunt, who is now willing to make love with him.

The next morning, the nurse leaves for the town of Argenton, giving a lift to another resident who is breakfasting in the bar. This resident is a professor at the police academy. He is dropped off at work where he gives a lecture to a class of delinquent policemen, who behave like schoolchildren, on the subject of the relativism of laws, customs and taboos. The lecture is constantly interrupted, until only two officers are left in the class. The professor continues, using a dinner party at his friends' house to illustrate a point he is making. We then cut to the 'dinner' party which is being held in a modern bourgeois apartment.

The guests are seated around the table on flushing toilets. They politely discuss various issues around the topic of defecation whilst publicly using the toilets that they are sitting on. When a guest is hungry, he excuses himself and retires to the dining room, a private cubicle, to eat food.

We cut back to the police lecture. The two policeman go on duty where they stop a speeding motorist (Mr. Legendre) who is rushing to see his doctor. Mr. Legendre is eventually told by his doctor that he has cancer and offered a cigarette, he slaps his doctor and returns home. Once home, he tells his wife that nothing is wrong with him. They receive a phone call informing them that their daughter has disappeared from school.

We now cut to the school where the teachers insist that the little girl has vanished despite the fact that she is physically present. Her disappearance is reported to the police, the girl is present but none of the adults admit to her presence. In this absurdist scene, she is there – the adults are able to see and speak to her – yet they act as if she is missing. Finally the policeman charged with finding her is given her photograph –and asks if he can take her with him.

We follow one of the policemen, who is having his shoes shined. We then follow the man who is sitting next to him to the top of a tower block (the Tour Montparnasse). This man is a sniper who randomly kills people in the streets below. He is arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to death but leaves the courtroom to be treated as a celebrity.

Mr. Legendre is called to see the Prefect of Police who returns the missing daughter. The Prefect is about to read a letter explaining how the girl was found, but is interrupted and leaves to visit a bar. In the bar, he meets a woman who looks like his dead sister (we see a flashback in which he remembers his sister playing the piano, naked). He then receives a phone call from his dead sister, asking him to meet her at the mausoleum. When he visits the cemetery at night, he finds a telephone in the crypt by his sister's coffin. Her hair is hanging out of the coffin. He is suddenly arrested for desecration by officers who refuse to believe that he is the Prefect of Police.

The Prefect is taken to his office, where a different man takes his place. The two men treat each other cordially and discuss crowd control as if they are acquainted. We see the animals in the zoo, the two police chiefs arrive, and direct police control of an unseen riot. A voice is heard offscreen crying out "Long live chains!" as at the beginning of the film. The tolling church bells and gunshots from the opening scene of the film are also repeated. The film ends with a close-up shot of an ostrich's head.

In the aftermath of a global plague and the death of all humans, a group of genetically altered posthumans raised in IVR, or Immersive Virtual Reality, are trying to rebuild society by cloning children. They're divided into two ideological factions, the rest being politically indifferent.

Vashti and Champagne's group in Munich, Germany, have formed a school in the Nymphenburg Palace for Posthuman children they've created, invulnerable to Black Ep because of genetically boosted immune systems. Due to the fact that females have a slightly stronger resistance to Black Ep and Vashti's belief in matriarchy, all the children are female. Nymphenburg is very structured, most of the children's time being rigidly scheduled. Vashti feels that humanity should be improved upon via genetic engineering, and leads most of the scientific aspects of Nymphenburg. Champagne is mostly responsible for taking care of the children, supplies, and gardening. The Nymphenburg children include fifteen-year-old Penelope, Sloane, and Tomi.

Isaac's group is based in Luxor, Egypt, which he has renamed Thebes, and is structured more like a traditional family. His children consist of both females and males, and are unaltered humans. Thebes is Sufi Muslim, and a more relaxed environment than Nymphenburg. They're protected from Black Ep by a retrovirus called BEAR. The Thebes children include Hessa, sixteen-year-old Mu'tazz and fifteen-year-old Haji. Though both camps survived Black Ep, both still work to cure it. The two camps have a short-term exchange program despite their incompatibility and the death of Hessa in a previous exchange.

The other three posthumans are either neutral or uninvolved in this debate. Pandora runs infrastructure repair and IVR, computer-generated virtual reality used as a school and hobby for the children in Nymphenburg. Halloween lives alone in North America, and opposes the very idea of repopulating Earth. The only person he'll speak to is Pandora. Fantasia is somewhere in North America as well, even more isolated than Halloween.

Haji is included in the exchange with Nymphenburg with two of his siblings, Ngozi and Dalila. Raised without some of the technology they use, Haji is delighted by it, but feels a certain unease. Vashti monitors all of their dealings and domains in IVR, and has it strictly censored. Vashti also controls the girls through virtual dollars given as pocket money, used to buy things in IVR.

Penny, the main character of the Munich base, showns signs of narcissism. She considers herself the best of her siblings, regarding them with either hatred or pity. She also believes she has the ability to "hex" people, crediting herself with the injury of her sister. When she hears that Pandora has become overworked and may need an assistant, she puts all her energy into getting the position, even bribing or blackmailing her sisters to convince Pandora to hire her. Penny wants to be "queen of the inside" by controlling IVR, thereby controlling her sisters.

Many small items with no history or sender keep ending up in IVR. Penny finds the yin half of a yin-yang symbol and Haji finds a key. Tomi, his friend, recognizes it as the key to the cryonics lab where she assists Vashti. Tomi sneaks him in, realizing that he is a clone of IVR programmer Dr. James Hyoguchi. She shows Haji a recording from James telling him to "download" James' mapped brain, destroying himself in the process. Haji is terrified, and as the disc ends Vashti finds him and Tomi. After repeatedly asking him who sent him the key, she is sympathetic, advising him not to sacrifice himself. Haji is overwhelmed, feeling betrayed by his father and wondering whether he should go through with it. His religion stresses the ultimate path to God as self-annihilation through ''fana''. He wonders if his father's intentions in raising him to believe this were to get him to accept his death. Haji calls Isaac while he's on an expedition with Pandora asking him if he was in fact designed to be a conduit for James. Isaac tells him that this is not the case, and that he should disregard the disc.

In a diary entry, Penny reveals that Hessa's death was caused by her switching pills out with laxatives as a prank. When her plan to become Pandora's assistant fails, she flies into a rage, making a list of people she wants revenge upon.

Just after Haji calls his father and Penny makes out her hit list, there is a massive IVR security breach. Everything is exposed, including Vashti's logs and evaluations of the girls that reveal a range of mood-suppressing drugs—including sex-drive suppressants—and subliminal codes that the Munich camp use to keep their children in line, as well as the reading of the girls' supposedly secret diaries. Penny's ego is shattered by the revelation that she is considered beneath her sisters. Vashti is furious and the girls are outraged. The attack is traced back to Halloween. However, it was really organized by someone named Deuce, who was also behind the mysterious objects.

Meanwhile, Pandora is tracking monkeys in the Amazon in the hopes of discovering how they survived Black Ep. The group captures a primate, but Mu'tazz, a human boy on the expedition, suddenly becomes extremely ill, and the group rushes to Nymphenburg for medical care. During the flight, Vashti calls Pandora, demanding she confront Halloween.

During Pandora and Halloween's conversation, Halloween reveals that he cloned himself shortly after escaping IVR, hoping for the clone to be a better person. However, he did not replicate Halloween's choices, and Hal realized that he was not the same. He pulled him out of IVR when he was five years old, named him Deuce, and raised him as his son. Halloween largely approves of Deuce exposing Vashti and Champagne. Deuce, Halloween, and Pandora agree to fly Deuce to Munich, Deuce and Halloween mostly seeing it as an opportunity for Deuce to meet new people, but Vashti intending to "make an example of him".

Halloween travels to Munich to find his son, and makes a certain amount of peace with his former classmates.

Deuce and Penelope go to a deserted Britain, and begin a 'last couple on Earth' fantasy. The pair go to an air force base and acquire weaponry. After they accidentally shoot down Pandora over the Mediterranean, they travel to Munich with a rocket launcher. Deuce does not want to actually go through with it, hoping to distract her until they're either caught or Penny sees reason. When Penny tells Deuce to fire the rocket launcher at the headquarters where everyone else is, Deuce refuses. Penny takes the rocket launcher herself and prepares to fire it. Halloween shoots her. Deuce commits suicide, with his idea of his father shattered.

In the aftermath, the various leaders realize that all their problems came from division. They all move to Munich, where they begin to build, hopefully, a better world.

Dastan, a street urchin in Persia, is adopted by King Sharaman after showing courage. Fifteen years later, the king's brother Nizam relays evidence to the princes—Dastan, along with the king's biological sons Tus and Garsiv—that the holy city of Alamut is forging weapons for Persia's enemies. Tus directs the Persian army to capture Alamut. Dastan and his friends breach the city and open a gate for the siege. During the attack, Dastan defeats a royal guard and takes from him a sacred dagger.

Alamut falls to the Persians, but Princess Tamina denies that the city has any weapon forges. Tus asks her to marry him to unite the two nations, and she only accepts after seeing the dagger in Dastan's possession. At their celebratory banquet, Tus has Dastan give their father an embroidered robe. However, the robe is poisoned, fatally burning Sharaman. Garsiv accuses Dastan of the king's murder, but Dastan escapes with Tamina. Tus is appointed king and a bounty on Dastan’s head is set.

While in hiding, Tamina attempts to kill Dastan and steal the dagger, and in the struggle Dastan discovers the dagger enables the wielder to travel back in time. Dastan concludes that Tus invaded Alamut for the dagger, and decides to confront his brother at the funeral of the king in Avrat. On the way, the two are captured by merchant-bandits led by Sheik Amar who seeks the reward money, but they manage to escape. After arriving in Avrat, Dastan tries to convince Nizam of his innocence. Seeing burns on Nizam's hands, Dastan realizes that Nizam orchestrated the king's murder. Furthermore, Nizam has set up an ambush for Dastan along the Persian streets, but after a conflict with Garsiv, Dastan escapes. Nizam sends a group of covert warriors, the Hassansins, to kill Dastan and find the dagger.

During a sandstorm, Tamina tells Dastan that long ago, the gods unleashed a great sandstorm to destroy humanity but were moved by a young girl's offer to sacrifice herself in humanity's place and trapped the Sands of Time in a large sandglass. Tamina is the latest guardian of the dagger, given to the young girl by the gods, which can pierce the sandglass and potentially destroy the world but also enable the dagger's wielder to travel further back in time than the one minute's worth of sand the dagger holds. Dastan realizes that Nizam intends to travel back to his childhood, prevent himself from saving Sharaman from a lion attack, and grow up to become King of Persia in Sharaman's place. Amar captures the two again, but Dastan saves Amar's men from a Hassansin attack using the dagger. This convinces Amar to escort them to a sanctuary near the Hindu Kush, where Tamina will seal the dagger within the stone it first came from. At the sanctuary, they are found by Garsiv, whom Dastan convinces of his innocence, but the Hassansins ambush them, killing Garsiv and stealing the dagger.

Dastan's group travels back to Alamut to retrieve the dagger from Nizam and warn Tus of Nizam. Amar's right-hand man Seso dies retrieving the dagger for Dastan, who demonstrates the dagger's powers to Tus to convince him of the truth. Afterwards, Nizam interrupts them, kills Tus, and takes the dagger back. Tamina saves Dastan from being killed and the two head for the secret tunnels beneath the city that lead to the sandglass. When they reach Nizam, he stabs the sandglass and throws them both off a cliff. Tamina sacrifices herself, releasing Dastan's hand and falling to her death to allow him to fight Nizam.

Nizam thrusts the dagger into the esoterical column of sandglass under the temple. Dastan grabs hold of the hilt of the dagger together with Nizam; as sand is released from the sandglass, time rewinds to the moment Dastan found the dagger. He finds Tus and Garsiv and exposes Nizam's treachery. Nizam tries to kill Dastan, but Dastan easily defeats him yet spares him. Nizam gets up and attempts to attack again but is subdued and killed by Tus. Tus apologizes to Tamina for the siege and proposes to strengthen the two nations' bond by marital alliance of the Princess to Dastan. Dastan returns the dagger to Tamina as an engagement gift and tells her he looks forward to their future together.

After being stabbed with an ancient Tibetan amulet and having escaped to hospital, a Bangkok firefighter named Chan is transformed into a superhero when his body becomes a massive heat source, which he learns to manipulate to give him super strength, increased agility and the ability to make great leaps.

Chan's fate is entwined with an Afghan terrorist, Osama bin Ali, who wants the power of the Tibetan amulet to use in a plot to destroy the United States. With his international terrorist organization, led by henchwoman Areena, Osama kidnaps Chan's mother and sister (played by famed transgender Thai kickboxer Parinya Kiatbusaba) and takes them to the Royal Thai Navy base, where he hopes to launch a rocket at a US Navy chemical weapon ship. Osama also has suicide bombers spread out throughout Thailand, stationed in American franchises in Thailand, ready to act on his word.

Aided by the young female guardian of the amulet, Chan rescues his mother and sister. However, he must face Areena, who has stabbed herself with a companion amulet, giving her the powers of extreme cold and ice.

Shortly after learning their unit will soon return home, American soldiers Lieutenant Colonel Dr. William Marsh (Samuel L. Jackson), Sergeant Vanessa Price (Jessica Biel), Specialists Tommy Yates (Brian Presley) Jamal Aiken (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), and Private Jordan Owens (Chad Michael Murray) are on their final mission, in a vehicle in a convoy bringing medical supplies to a remote Iraqi village. They are ambushed by insurgents. The forward vehicles of the convoy are trapped in a narrow street and forced to fight the attackers. The rear vehicles manage to escape the initial barrage by taking a side-street, only to be met with an improvised explosive device hidden in the carcass of a dead dog. Sgt. Price, the driver, is seriously wounded, as her front seat passenger is killed instantly. A soldier in their team is shot and killed pursuing the young boys who left the bomb and other attackers.

Aiken, Yates and Owens head out to fight the attackers. Aiken trips on loose bricks from a broken wall and injures his back, so Yates and Owens continue alone, finding the shooters in a graveyard. Wounded in the leg, Yates falls behind as Owens races after the shooter. However, the shooter has surreptitiously moved, and Owens is shot from behind. Yates arrives, but the shooter is already gone, and it is too late for Owens, who dies in Yates' arms.

At a field hospital, a mortar attack injures multiple personnel and destroys many vehicles. The medical staff, including Marsh, is struggling to care for the wounded and dying as mortars rain down upon the compound. A young soldier carries his squad-mate into the trauma care ward. While Marsh addresses another soldier's wounds, the man draws a Beretta pistol and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't take care of his dying companion right away. Another squad-mate comes up and pulls the threatening soldier away. Price and Aiken are transported via medevac helicopter to a field hospital; Price's right hand is amputated. Aiken survives his wounds, and returns to the unit when they rotate back to the US. Price is remanded to a formal hospital for physical therapy and fitting for a non-functioning rubber prosthesis.

Upon returning home, the main characters have a hard time returning to civilian life. Price struggles with day-to-day things, like learning to unbutton her clothing with only one hand, while trying to resume her job as a crippled P.E. teacher and basketball coach. Yates is unemployed, having lost his job at a gun shop during his deployment. His father pushes him towards the police academy, but Yates, witnessing the self-destruction of Aiken, who had become frustrated and angry at being denied VA benefits for his back injury and the rejection of his girlfriend, walks out of the academy's entrance exam.

Marsh begins to slip into self-destructive behavior as his son, angry about the senselessness of the war and what it's done to his family, gets into trouble at school. Drunk on Thanksgiving Day, Marsh brings home three yard workers for dinner to the dismay of his family. Afterwards, his wife catches him in his study with a loaded pistol contemplating suicide. He agrees to go to therapy for PTSD. There, he reveals that he does not feel any emotion over the soldiers that died, but as a doctor he believes he should. The conflict had slowly eaten away at him until he could not control it anymore.

Aiken is shot and killed by the police at the small fast-food diner where his girlfriend worked; a result of him taking her and her co-workers hostage with a pistol to force her to talk to him. Marsh's wife reaffirms her love for him and offers to help him through counseling. Price falls in love with another coach at her school, whom she had rejected earlier while trying to transition back to her life. Yates has an emotional outburst at his father's shop and re-enlists. As the film ends, Marsh's son is happily playing in a soccer match at Price's school. Price introduces her new boyfriend to Marsh's wife and confirms dinner plans with them. Yates undergoes basic training again, and is shown patrolling the streets of an Iraqi city.

At the end of a World War between humans and robots, a nuclear bomb was detonated and a Dark Age begun, without technology or electricity. On the last day of the war, as the nuclear bombs are detonating, one of the robots, Omega Doom, is shot in his head by a dying soldier. The shot causes Doom's programming for the destruction of mankind to be erased. After the world was cleared of humanity by the cyborgs, only the cyborgs and robots remain. Some time later, Omega Doom arrives at a destroyed city, where he encounters an unusual community of robots and roms (newer and more advanced robots), who are in conflict.

At the city Omega Doom finds there are two remaining peaceful robots - a former nanny who now works as a bartender and the head of a former teacher, whom the other robots use as a ball. Omega Doom helps The Head find a body and tells Doom about a rumored stock of hidden weapons. Both the robots and the roms want these weapons in order to continue the destruction of the remaining humans.

Eventually, Omega Doom gets the robots to promise to destroy the roms in exchange for half of the weapons; but he also proposes the same deal to the roms. The robots and the roms end up fighting each other, ensuring their mutual destruction. Afterwards, Doom leaves the last two peaceful robots (The Bartender and The Head) and the one remaining rom in charge of the city and continues his wandering.

The plot resumes a few weeks after ''Inkspell'' left off; Farid and Meggie's mission of bringing Dustfinger, who died at the end of ''Inkspell'', back to life.

''Inkdeath'' picks up with the now immortal, but slowly decaying, evil Adderhead, ruler of the southern part of the Inkworld, his brother-in-law the Milksop king of Ombra, and his trusty right-hand man, The Piper, ruling over the city of Ombra and the small villages around it. They set harsher taxes and loot what they can from the villages. The three Folcharts, Meggie, Resa, and Mortimer, along with an unborn Folchart child, reside at a peaceful abandoned farm that has long been forgotten by others. Farid, who has given up his fire after the death of Dustfinger, works for an increasingly wealthy Orpheus. Orpheus treats him like a slave while promising that he will read a dead Dustfinger back to life. Fenoglio, the author, gives up writing at the beginning of the book and grows increasingly drunken and senile. He is immensely annoyed at how Orpheus is changing Inkworld and asking his never-ending questions about the "White Women". Ombra is under constant threat by the Adderhead's men, who have killed nearly every young adult male in the city and regularly kidnap children to work them in the mines. The only figure standing in their way is the romanticized "Bluejay", a thief created by Fenoglio in a series of songs that were inspired by Mo who is now "stuck" as the "Bluejay" and is in as much trouble as ever.

Meanwhile, Orpheus, who has been tediously changing the story, succeeds in calling a meeting of the robber graveyard to get the Bluejay to bring Dustfinger back to life and die in the process. Mo agrees, and summons the White women, who bring him to the world of the dead for what turns out to be three days. During this time, Meggie believes her father is dead and becomes furious with both Farid and her mother, Resa. In the world of the dead, Mo meets Death itself, who makes a bargain with Mo: Death will release Dustfinger from her grasp and Mo as well, as long as Mo finishes what he started, and writes the three words in the White Book, the book that makes the Adderhead immortal. If he does not succeed, Death will take him, Dustfinger, and Meggie, as she was partially involved in the binding of The White Book. He awakens from the world of death, bringing Dustfinger with him. They are now both nearly fearless, Dustfinger is now scarless, and they are both inseparable from each other.

Mo finds himself enjoying the Bluejay role, and has no intention of leaving Inkworld despite Meggie and Resa's urgings. Meggie finds herself increasingly distanced from Farid, and drawn to another young man named Doria, a member of the Black Prince's robber camp. The plot picks up when nearly all of the children of Ombra are kidnapped by The Piper and threatened to be taken to the mines where they will surely die. Mo, now known almost exclusively as the Bluejay, cannot accept this and frees them by giving himself up in exchange. He discovers that the Adderhead's daughter, Violante, known as Her Ugliness, wishes to take his side in the matter. She gets him back safely to the robbers' camp while keeping her allegiance a secret from The Piper and her young son Jacopo, a follower of the Adderhead and admirer of the Piper. The Piper is sent to follow after the children. The Milksop goes after the group of robbers, but Fenoglio saves them by writing giant human nests up in the trees.

Mo goes off in secret with Dustfinger, Violante, and her legion of child soldiers to the castle in the lake, where the white book is kept. In the meantime, Orpheus has put himself in the service of the Adderhead, in the hopes of picking the winning team but doesn't because Mo has a few tricks up his sleeve. He is also plagued by visits from a now insane Mortola, who still works for the return of her dead son, Capricorn. The Bluejay and Dustfinger face difficulty at the castle, and their plans go awry. Mo, Dustfinger, and Brianna, Dustfinger's daughter, are all eventually imprisoned. For Brianna's sake, Dustfinger momentarily betrays Mo. At this point, Resa arrives in the form of a Swift, saves Mo from going insane, and restates Dustfinger's allegiance. Resa and Dustfinger search for The White Book unsuccessfully while the Bluejay, who has been captured again by the Piper, works on creating a new white book for the Adderhead. Jacopo betrays his grandfather, the Adderhead, by giving Mo the original white book so that he is able to write the three words, thus killing the Adderhead.

''Inkdeath'' concludes as Orpheus, finding himself on the losing end, flees to the northern mountains, Fenoglio is writing again, and Farid decides to go traveling with his regained power of fire, asking if Meggie would join him. Meggie, now in love with Doria, bids Farid farewell and good luck. Violante, now known as Her Kindliness, becomes ruler of Ombra, and a new Folchart, a boy, is born into Inkworld, longing to visit the world that his parents and sister were born in, with its horseless carriages and flying machines.

In the year 2005, at the end of October, at Halloween, Phillipa wanted to be a witch and John wanted to be a Dracula with real blood. They lived at 77 East 77th Street in New York.

After having promised their mother, Layla, not to use their djinn powers without consulting her first, John and Philippa are leading pretty normal lives. When Phillipa enters the Djinnverso tournament (also called Djinnversoctoannular, a djinn game of bluffing with 7 astaralgi, or 8 sided dice, the object being to undermine luck) unbidden events are set into motion and she is framed as a cheater. The twins also learn that the famed book, Solomon's Grimoire, which is in the care of Ayesha, the Blue Djinn of Babylon and the ruler of all six tribes of djinn, has been stolen. The Grimoire gives anyone who uses its spells vast control over a djinn. The twins go in search of the missing book, leading them into more danger and adventures.

It turns out that Solomon's Grimoire is not missing, but instead was being used as a trap for Philippa. Ayesha, the twins' grandmother (whom they do not know of until the end of the book), wished to kidnap Philippa so that she would be the next Blue Djinn, as Ayesha's life was rapidly expiring. Jockeying for her position was Mimi de Ghulle, a wicked djinn from the tribe of Ghul; however, she is having little success. John goes in search of Philippa, who is being held at the Blue Djinn's secret palace in Babylon. The twin's favorite uncle, Nimrod, also goes in search of an acceptable alternative to Philippa as the next Blue Djinn. The book alternates between John's search for Philippa, told in third person narration, and Philippa's experiences, told in first person in the form of a diary. Philippa discovers that the Blue Djinn's powers to be beyond good and evil come from the Garden of Eden's Tree of Logic. Slowly Philippa loses her humanity as the Tree has greater and greater effects on her. John, in his search, faces numerous obstacles in finding and reaching the palace. He is aided by two of his uncles, Alan and Neil, who were turned into dogs by his mother for attempting the murder of their brother, John and Philippa's father, Edward, for his fortune. In addition, John attains a copy of ''The Bellili Scrolls'', a map to the palace, and of its underground locale, Iravotum. The book climaxes when John reaches the palace and manages to rescue Philippa. However, during their traversal of Iravotum, Alan and Neil attack a large bird, called the Rukkh, that was attacking the group, biting its legs. However, the dogs did not let go, and fell to the ground, killing them. It is later revealed that Layla's binding of the human Alan and Neil would last only as long as the physical bodies of the dogs they inhabit, leaving the human Alan and Neil alive.

The twins join Nimrod and Groanin in a restaurant, called Kebabylon, in Iraq, near Iravotum. A reporter introduced earlier in the book is also present. The reporter, Montana Retch, is actually a djinn tracker hired by Mimi de Ghulle to eliminate Philippa, so that Mimi would be the only candidate for the post of Blue Djinn. After Layla appears, having been summoned by the transformation of Alan and Neil, she transforms Montana Retch into a cat, reversing her previous vow never to use djinn power again.

It is revealed to the reader, but not John and Philippa, that Ayesha did not wish Philippa to be the next Blue Djinn; she wanted Layla. However, Layla had refused, prompting Ayesha to kidnap Philippa to use as a bargaining tool. As Ayesha knew she would, Layla offered herself to become the next Blue Djinn in place of Philippa; Nimrod is also privy to this due to his own conclusions. The novel ends with the children still not knowing, but as Layla knows Ayesha's life is rapidly ending, must tell her children the reason Ayesha did not pursue them after escaping and leave forever to assume her post as the cold-hearted Blue Djinn of Babylon.

Melinda Howard is an entertainer traveling from England to pay a surprise visit to her mother, Broadway singer Jessica Howard, who lives in New York City. Melinda believes that her mother lives in a mansion, however, Jessica's alcoholism has reduced her to singing in a Greenwich Village saloon, and the mansion actually belongs to Adolph Hubbell and his wife.

The Hubbells' butler, Lefty Mack, and his fiancée, Gloria Davis, the maid, are a down-on-their luck vaudeville team and are good friends of Jessica and have been forwarding her letters to Melinda. Lefty pretends that Jessica has rented the house to the Hubbells while she is on tour, and, when a disappointed Melinda discloses that she has no money, offers her one of the servants' rooms for the night. Lefty promises Melinda that her mother will return home soon, and then informs Jessica of her daughter's arrival. He then suggests that she come to the house the next night when the Hubbells will be giving a party attended by many Broadway performers.

Meanwhile, Adolph has discovered Melinda's presence, and after Lefty explains the situation, agrees to keep Jessica's secret. At the party, Melinda awaits her mother's arrival, and while waiting, sees that one of party guests brought along Tom Farnham, who was on the boat with Melinda and had made a pass at her. He had also kept his profession a secret while on the boat. At the party, he entertains the crowd with a song and dance, as he is the male lead in George Ferndel's newest production, ''Lullaby of Broadway.''

Ferndel, the Broadway producer, tries to persuade Adolphe to invest in his latest show, something Adolph refuses to do unless he is able to help cast the production. Jessica fails to appear at the party because she has been hospitalized with delirium tremens and Lefty explains to Melinda that Jessica's show was too popular for her to leave, which leads Melinda to vow to wait for her.

as Melinda HowardIn an attempt to cheer up Melinda, Lefty suggests to Adolph that he take her to dinner and present her to Ferndel as the potential new star of his show. Ferndel is impressed by Melinda's performance, and as a reward, Adolph decides to buy Melinda a fur coat. Tom happens to see him in the fur shop, and Adolphe has to beg him to keep it a secret. The fur arrives at the house and Gloria is horrified, as she believes Adolphe's intentions are far from fatherly. Melinda, upset by the insinuations, insists on returning the coat, and informs Lefty and Gloria that they will both have parts in the musical.

Before the coat is returned, however, Mrs. Hubbell finds it and believes that it is a surprise for her. She wears it that night to a charity ball where Melinda sees her and candidly remarks to Tom that the coat had originally been meant for her. Tom misinterprets her statements, and the two quarrel bitterly. Although Jessica has been released from the hospital, she fears Melinda's reaction to her present state and refuses to meet with her.

Right before the show opens, Mrs. Hubbell learns the truth about the fur, and names Melinda in a divorce suit against Mr. Hubbell. Tom offers to "forgive" the shocked Melinda, and she realizes that he, too, thought she was romantically involved with Adolph. Shortly afterward, an aggressive reporter recognizes Jessica's picture and tells Melinda the truth about her mother. Completely shattered, Melinda decides to return to England and begs Lefty to pay for her ticket. Gloria and Lefty meet Melinda at the ship and escort her to a stateroom where Jessica is waiting. Mother and daughter are tearfully reunited, and Lefty informs them that Mrs. Hubbell now knows that there was nothing between Melinda and Adolph. They all leave together for the theater, where opening night is a success, and Tom and Melinda are free to pursue their romance.

Picking up where ''Homecoming'' left off, Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings, Sammy, Maybeth, and James, are now living with their crazy and widowed grandmother Abigail Tillerman, or Gram as the children call her, on her farm just outside Crisfield, Maryland. Because the Tillermans' mom just left them in the parking lot in Provincetown, the children have the chance to start living a completely new life in their new family home, even though several of the major issues of ''Homecoming'' are not resolved. Dicey has trouble letting go of her siblings enough to let Gram take over as the parent character. She also worries about her mother Liza, who is catatonic and seriously ill in a psychiatric hospital in Boston.

While in their new school, the Tillermans make several new friends: Mr. Lingerle, the elementary school's music teacher, who begins giving Maybeth piano lessons; Mina, a friendly African-American girl who goes to school with Dicey; and Jeff, a high school student who likes to play the guitar. To help Gram support the family, Dicey starts to work for Millie Tydings, the owner of the local grocery store, whom Gram has known since childhood.

Gram soon comes to terms with having to accept Social Security payments to help with the costs of raising her four grandchildren. She also must confront and reexamine her past, particularly her relationship with her deceased husband and her three children. Gram refuses to discuss her past with the children, and their attempts to find out about it by climbing into the attic are met with anger.

As the children settle into the routines of their new school and after-school jobs, Gram receives a number of letters from the psychiatric hospital in which the children's catatonic mother resides. The letters do not appear to bring hopeful news, although Gram does not discuss their contents with the children. Dicey is frustrated that Gram will not open up and talk about her past, or their mother's past as a child growing up with her two siblings in the same house that Dicey and her brothers and sister are now living. She is also frustrated that her grandmother will not tell her what is in the letters from Boston, beyond the fact that her mother is no better.

In December, the psychiatric hospital in Boston calls and informs Gram that Liza is in a critical state and may not live much longer. Dicey and Gram travel to Boston, and find Liza catatonic, not responding to any treatment. Liza soon dies and, since they can't afford the cost of a funeral or of transporting Liza's body from Boston to Crisfield, Gram and Dicey decide to cremate her. Dicey is given a hand-carved wooden box by the owner of a local gift store who is touched by her situation. When Dicey and Gram arrive back in Crisfield, the family buries the wooden box containing their mother's ashes under the paper mulberry tree in their front yard, which to the Tillermans is important to the family because of its fragility and beauty.

Juan de Pareja is born into slavery in Seville, Spain in the early 1600s, and after the death of his mother when he is just five years old he becomes the pageboy of a wealthy Spanish lady, Emilia. At the end of the first chapter, both Doña Emilia and Juan's master die. Brother Isidro saves Juan from death and brings him to a group of people. They hand him off to a man named Don Carmelo to deliver him to Emilia's nephew, Don Diego Velázquez.

Diego has a wife, Juana de Miranda, and two little girls, Paquita and Ignacia. Juan's main job is to help his master with his work of painting: grinding the pigments, placing the paints on the palette, washing the brushes, and making the canvas frames. Although he is regularly present when Diego paints, Juan is not allowed to paint as he is a slave and the Spanish laws forbid it.

Two students, Cristobal and Alvaro, join the household as Diego's apprentices. Juan, whose opinions do not differ from his master and his family's, dislikes Cristobal, but finds Alvaro pleasant enough. Diego is invited to paint the king's portrait. He and his family, along with Juan and the apprentices, move to the living quarters on the palace grounds. When an artist named Peter Paul Rubens visits, Juan falls in love with a slave girl named Miri. Juan accompanies Diego to Italy, during which he begins to purchase art supplies in order to try painting and drawing on his own, while keeping it a secret from the Velázquezes. Paquita falls in love with an apprentice named Juan Bautista del Mazo and they marry.

During a hunting expedition, Juan saves the king's hound by treating him with herbal medicine. Juan gets to know the king's court entertainers, many of whom are dwarves. When Bartolomé Esteban Murillo of Seville becomes Diego's apprentice, he treats Juan as a friend. During their visits to Church, when Juan declines the Eucharist, Murillo asks what is the matter, and Juan replies he has been feeling guilty about breaking the law and master's trust by painting. Murillo does not believe painting to be a sin, but recommends Juan confess to a priest about stealing their master's paints, and that he should wait for an appropriate time to tell his master that he has been painting.

On Diego and Juan's second visit to Italy, Diego falls ill of seasickness and his hand becomes unsteady; he wonders if he can paint anymore. Juan prays for him to get well. When Diego is asked to paint a portrait of Pope Innocent X, he paints Juan as practice, and Juan uses the portrait to acquire commissions from other Italian noblemen. Returning to Spain, Juan meets Juana de Miranda's new slave named Lolis, whom he finds attractive.

In one of the routine visits by the king, Juan eventually reveals that he has been painting, but Diego writes a note that makes Juan a free man and his Assistant. Juan asks for Lolis' hand in marriage, which prompts Juana to write a similar note freeing Lolis. Paquita dies giving birth to her stillborn second child, while Juana dies from an illness two months later. Diego paints portraits and settings for the wedding by proxy of the king's sister Infanta Maria Teresa to King Louis XIV of France. Diego falls ill, and despite recovering briefly, he dies; the king has Juan help him paint a cross on Diego's self-portrait in ''Las Meninas'', posthumously bestowing him the Order of Santiago honor. Juan and Lolis return to Seville, where he takes up studio residence with Murillo and their family.

This book is set in first century Galilee, Israel. The main character is a young Jew named Daniel bar Jamin who lives at the same time as Jesus of Nazareth.

Daniel's father was killed in front of him, as an example, by the Roman occupiers. His uncle did not have money to pay the tax, so he was thrown in jail; when his father tried to break Daniel's uncle out of jail, they were both crucified. Even at eight, he hates and distrusts the Romans and vows that he will avenge his father's death. His mother dies of grief after her husband's death, and Daniel's younger sister, Leah, is traumatized by these events, possessed by demons but that is just a phrase, and never leaves the house. His parents' death is because of the purchase of a shawl. The children are both taken in by their grandmother, but as she becomes ill and poor over the years, she sells Daniel to Amalek the blacksmith. Daniel escapes his cruel master, running away to the mountains where he is found close to death and rescued by Rosh, the leader of an outlaw band of rebels, who plan to someday overthrow the Romans. They adopt Daniel into their crew, and Daniel begins a new life in the mountains, trying to forget about his grandmother and sister he had left behind in the village.

Several years after these events, Daniel meets people he used to know when he lived in Ketzah, Joel bar Hezron and his twin sister Malthace, who climbed the mountain for the holidays. Joel wants to join Rosh's band, so he promises Rosh that he will be a spy in Capernaum, the city to which he is moving.

Rosh sends Daniel out on a mission to capture a slave. The crew names him Samson (a character in the Biblical Book of Judges with immense strength) for his brute strength. Samson doesn't speak their language, but he sees Daniel as his master/friend and follows him. One day, Simon the Zealot (Daniel's friend from the village), comes to tell Daniel his grandmother is dying. He returns to his village of Ketzah and sees his grandmother. She passes away and Daniel is left in charge of Leah. Later, Simon tells Daniel he is going to follow Jesus and leaves Daniel in charge of his shop; Daniel and Leah move to Simon's shop and home.

Now that Daniel remains in the blacksmith shop rather than the mountains with Rosh's crew, Daniel begins recruiting young men who are around his age to rebel against the Romans. They decide on a password, which is from the song of David: 'He trains my hands for war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.' They meet in an abandoned watchtower outside of the village and slowly begin rebelling small bits at a time. One day, Rosh gives Joel a mission: he is to find out who is coming to a special banquet thrown for a special legation from Rome. Joel finds out the names by chatting to the servants and slaves of the house, and even after the banquet he continues to do so, passing on any information he can find to Rosh. But soon, Joel is captured. Rosh refuses to help free him, so Daniel and his small band devise a plan to free him themselves. From the top of a cliff, they attack the group of Romans that are escorting the prisoners, but the attack goes wrong. They only succeed because Samson, out of sacrificial love for Daniel, shows up and rolls a boulder down on the attacking Romans and then joins the fight. The boys end up freeing Joel, but one of them dies and many of them are injured. After the fight, Samson is dragged away by the Romans and is never to be seen again. Daniel realizes that in rebelling, they had been doing the wrong thing. Instead of weakening Rome, they had weakened themselves. Together, Joel and Daniel realize that Jesus is, perhaps, the leader they had been waiting for.

A young Roman soldier named Marcus, who Daniel hated, (despite being a conquered German), befriends Daniel's sister. Daniel eventually finds out and goes into a fit of rage. Leah, who had seemed to be in the process of being cured, falls back into fully being possessed by her demons.

The story ends with Jesus healing Leah from her demons, and Daniel realizes that "to know and follow Jesus would be enough". He shows Jesus' love to the Roman soldier. Daniel invites the Roman into his home to see Leah.

Miguel Chavez has dreamed of visiting the Sangre de Cristo Mountains since he was very little. This summer, he is going to work hard and pray until his father and grandfather realize that he is ready to take the trip with the rest of the older men.

His prayers are granted, though ironically – when his older brother is drafted his father needs an extra body and grudgingly allows Miguel to accompany them. Miguel is miserable with the manner in which his wish has been granted, and confesses to his brother what he prayed for. His brother explains that he had been praying to leave New Mexico and see more of the world – while he is not happy about being drafted, he fatalistically accepts that it is the only way he is likely to be able to fulfill his dream. The brothers resolve to allow God to work freely for the rest of their lives, and not bother God with petty requests.

As the fast of Ramadan is ending in Morocco, Agba, a mute slave boy, tends to his favorite Arabian mare, who gives birth that night. The colt has a white spot on his hind heel, considered the emblem of swiftness and good luck, but it also has a wheat ear on his chest, symbolizing bad luck. The mare dies within a few days, but Sham matures into a promising racehorse. Later, the Sultan summons six horseboys to his palace, including Agba, and charges them to accompany six horses to France. The horses are to be given as gifts to the French King Louis XV. The horseboy is to remain with that horse until the horse's death, then return to Morocco.

When the racehorses arrive in France, they are frowned upon by the French, who believe that they are not 'lusty' enough to be racehorses. Sham becomes a kitchen horse, but he is so disobedient that the cook sells him to a carter. Agba becomes a servant to Sham's new owner and meets Grimalkin the cat along the way.

Sham is bought by a Quaker man and taken to England. When Sham refuses to let the Quaker's nephew ride him, his owner sells him to an inn. Agba is jailed when he is caught sneaking into the inn to see Sham, but the Quaker's housekeeper bails him out, and both Sham and Agba are released into the service of the Earl of Godolphin.

The Earl treats Sham as a workhorse, albeit kindly. A mare Lady Roxana, meant to be a mate for the horse Hobgoblin, arrives. Sham successfully fights Hobgoblin for her. She enjoys Sham's company, but the Earl is embarrassed by the incident. He orders Sham, Agba, and Grimalkin to live in Wicken Fen, and they depart.

Two years later, the Earl's Chief Groom comes to see Agba and reveals that Lady Roxana gave birth to Sham's son Lath, who was left untrained. One day, Lath jumped a fence and outran some of the colts that the Earl was training. The trio return to Godolphin, and Sham is named the Godolphin Arabian. After the Earl reveals that he is near bankruptcy, they race Sham's sons at Newmarket. The sons win the races and the Queen's purse, thus repairing the Earl's fortunes and establishing Sham as one of the founding stallions of English track racing.

Adam is an eleven-year-old boy who wants to be like his father, Roger, and to do so he tries to be the best minstrel in England. At the beginning of the story, Adam and his friend Perkin are in St Alban's Abbey, where they go to an old lady's house to visit Adam's dog, Nick. They return to their home at the monastery and go to the roadside to find Roger is coming back from his long journey as a knight's minstrel. Roger tells Adam that he is going to London to follow in the knight's train. Adam is allowed to come, but he must hurry because the knight leaves the next day. While on the road, Adam meets Margery, the daughter of the knight, in a beautiful carriage. In the morning, following a night of feasting and partying, Roger tells Adam he lost his warhorse, Bayard, in a bet with another minstrel named Jankin.

One night, while Roger and Adam are sleeping, Jankin steals Nick. Adam worries that Jankin will mistreat Nick. When Adam and Roger discover Nick is gone, they chase Jankin across England. When Adam sees Jankin in a crowded marketplace, he pursues him and is separated from Roger. Now Adam is separated from both Roger and Nick and he has to find both alone. Adam makes friends along the way and with their help, finds Nick with Perkin. Roger, Adam and Nick are eventually reunited in Oxford. Adam is offered a place at an Oxford college, but decides to be a minstrel, like his father and with his father.

''The White Stag'' opens after the fall of the Biblical Tower of Babel. Nimrod is waiting for his two sons, Hunor and Magyar, to return. They rode away after a mysterious white stag that appeared seven months ago. Afraid they will never return and his people will be left leaderless, the old man offers a sacrifice to their god, Hadur—his war horse. Immediately his sons return with meat for the hungry people. As they tell the story of their chase of the white stag, Nimrod realizes it is now time for them to take over leading their people, and he throws himself on the altar.

Now Hunor and Magyar lead the people in a search for their promised land, following the white stag they can never catch. Later they meet and marry the Moonmaidens, and live contentedly for fifteen years. Eventually the game deserts them, and the people move on. "Like a sharp wedge they had driven themselves into Europe and now they were surrounded by enemies; they had to go on or perish." This time they have to fight many groups who live in the lands they travel through, and the people begin to quarrel. Hunor is strong and hard, while Magyar is quieter and more learned. Though both brothers still lead, the people are becoming divided and now identify themselves as Huns or Magyars, depending on which brother they most respect. Magyar wants to find a less populated land, but Hunor leads them into more fighting.

Finally the two groups split. The Magyars stay behind and Hunor's son, Bendeguz, and grandson, Atilla, lead the Huns west. When they find themselves at a dead-end during a blinding snow storm, the White Stag appears to show them a path through the mountains to their promised land, modern-day Hungary.

''Roller Skates'' opens with the narrator remembering back to a special year in the 1890s, when young Lucinda Wyman arrives at the Misses Peters' home in New York City; the two ladies will care for her during the year of Lucinda's parents' trip to Italy. The narrator's diaries help her remember the details of 10-year-old Lucinda's "orphanage," as she calls it. Miss Peters, a teacher, is "a person of great understanding, no nonsense, and no interference." Miss Nettie is shy and soft-hearted. Living with them Lucinda experiences unprecedented freedom, exploring the city on roller skates and making friends with all types of people.

Lucinda quickly gets to know Mr. Gilligan the hansom cab driver and Patrolman M'Gonegal. The first friend of her own age is Tony Coppino, son of an Italian fruit stand owner. Lucinda enlists Officer M'Gonegal to stop the bullies who knock down Tony's father's fruit-stand and steal the fruit. In return Tony takes her for a city picnic where they meet a rag-and-bone man. Later Lucinda reads Shakespeare with her favorite uncle and is inspired to put on a puppet production of ''The Tempest''.

But the cold and snow of winter keep her cooped up indoors, and eventually a restless Lucinda acts out and gets sent home from school in disgrace. Later her uncle introduces her to Shakespeare's tragedies, and she experiences her own when two of her friends die. With Lucinda's parents coming back from Italy, she realizes everything is changing, so she skates to the park one last time. "How would you like to stay always ten?" she muses. "That's what I'd call a perfectly elegant idea!"

''Invincible Louisa'', subtitled "''The Story of the Author of Little Women''", opens with Louisa Alcott's birth on a snowy November day in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Bronson Alcott, ran a school for young children in their home. "It was a time of great happiness, peace, and security... Happiness was to continue... but peace and security were not to come again for a very long time". So Meigs introduces her reader to Alcott's life. Her father, Bronson, is portrayed as brilliant but impractical, unable to support his family as a man of the times was expected to.

The book follows the Alcott family to Boston and Concord, as Bronson Alcott seeks places that understand his unusual views on education and transcendentalism. Louisa proves to be an active child, getting into trouble and causing her mother, Abba, some anxiety. When she is ten the family moves again to Fruitlands, the transcendentalist community Alcott helps found. By now there are four girls in the family. Meigs portrays Bronson Alcott and the oldest daughter, Anna, as being fully committed to the ideals of this new life, but says that Louisa and her mother understand how much hard work would be necessary for a communal farm to succeed. The contrast between idealistic and practical is shown when Bronson and the only other adult leave the area for a conference just as the barley is being harvested. An approaching storm has Abba and the children bringing in the grain alone. In less than a year Fruitlands failed, and the family moved several more times.

''Invincible Louisa the Alcotts' friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and recounts some of the events Louisa later used in ''Little Women'', including meetings of the Pickwick Club and the death of one of Louisa's younger sisters, Elizabeth. Louisa later leaves the family to earn her own way writing and teaching. During the Civil War she travels to Washington, DC to nurse soldiers. The book concludes with Louisa writing ''Little Women'' and the two books that followed, ''Little Men'' and ''Jo's Boys''. The success of these books, according to Meigs, gives Louisa her own "happy ending... the whole of what she had wanted from life -- just to take care of them all."

''Invincible Louisa'' ends with a five page chronology of Louisa May Alcott's life.

As the book opens, the widowed Fu Be-be arrives on Chair-makers Way in Chungking, China, with her 13-year-old son Yuin-fah and a letter from a village friend to Tang Yu-shu, a master coppersmith, asking that Young Fu be given an apprenticeship in Tang's establishment. Because the widow is alone and Young Fu is her only son, he is allowed to complete his apprenticeship while living in a small rented room with her, rather than living in the shop, a plot device which allows us to see more of the city than might otherwise be the case.

In the chapters that follow, Young Fu goes from being a young and somewhat arrogant boy of 13 to a more capable and humble youth of 18. Along the way, he has encounters with soldiers, foreigners, thieves, political activists, an old scholar, the poor of the city, the rich of the city, and government officials. He is alternately swindled, attacked by bandits, reviled and praised as his coppersmith skills grow.

"X" was created by Dr. Thomas Light. He was a new type of robot with the ability to think, feel, and make his own decisions. Recognizing the potential danger of this model (in particular if he were to break the first rule of robotics: a robot must never harm a human being), Light sealed X away in a diagnostic capsule for over 30 years of testing. X's capsule was uncovered by an archaeologist named Dr. Cain almost 100 years after X's creation. Excited by the possibilities X presented, Cain disregarded the warnings Light had logged in the capsule and created a legion of robots that replicated X's free will; these robots were called "Reploids" (shortened from Replica Android, but known as "Repliroids" in Japan).

A number of Reploids turned against humans. These Reploids were dubbed "Mavericks" ("Irregulars" in Japan), and a force called the Maverick Hunters ("Irregular Hunters") was formed to combat them. The Maverick Hunters were led by Sigma until he, too, became a Maverick and declared war against the humans, thus starting the Maverick War. X took it upon himself to join the Maverick Hunters under their new leader Zero. Throughout the series, X and Zero battle against the Mavericks to stop their plots to destroy the human race.

After the series reached an unresolved cliffhanger, a game entitled ''Mega Man X DiVE'' was released by Capcom Taiwan in which a human plays ''Mega Man X'', until due in part to some corrupted data known as Maverick Data, he/she gets transported into the Deep Log, a massive database with data on every Mega Man game. The player must progress through the scrambled code of the Maverick Wars, Elf Wars, and the Game Of Destiny, to destroy the Maverick Data causing the slow corruption of the Deep Log.