''The Iron Saint'' was originally a four-issue mini-series titled '''''Iron and the Maiden'''''. It was followed up by a one-shot: ''Iron and the Maiden: Brutes, Bims and the City''. The series portrays an alternate-universe 1930s metropolis. "The City" is struggling to survive a three-way battle for power between The Government, the ominous religious sect known as The Order and the seedy criminal underbelly led by The Syndicate. Caught in the middle of this war for power, Michael Iron discovers firsthand the meaning of sacrifice, his only hope for survival coming in the form of a forgiving Angel and several more surprises along the way.

Rubin has described it as "a cross between a '30s gangster film, ''Escape from New York'' and ''Beauty and the Beast''."

In the year of the city 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic lifestyle but, to prevent overpopulation, everyone must undergo the rite of "Carrousel" when they reach the age of 30. There, they are killed under the guise of being "renewed". To track this, each person is implanted at birth with a "life-clock" crystal in the palm of the left hand that changes color as they get older and begins blinking as they approach their "Last Day". Most residents accept this chance for rebirth, but those who do not and attempt to flee the city are known as "Runners". An elite team of policemen known as "Sandmen", outfitted in predominantly black uniforms, are assigned to pursue and terminate Runners as they try to escape.

Logan 5 and Francis 7 are both Sandmen. After terminating a Runner, to whose presence they were alerted during a Carrousel rite, Logan finds an ankh among his possessions. Later that evening, he meets Jessica 6, a young woman also wearing an ankh pendant. Logan takes the ankh to the computer, which tells him that it is a symbol for a secret group whose members help the Runners find "Sanctuary", a mythic place where they will be safe to live out the rest of their lives.

Logan learns that the Sandmen have lost 1,056 Runners this way. The computer instructs Logan to find Sanctuary and destroy it, a mission which it code names "Procedure 033-03", which he must keep secret from the other Sandmen. Then, the computer changes the color of his life clock to flashing red, suddenly making him four years closer to Carrousel. Scared, he asks if the four years will be restored to him when his mission is completed but receives no response. In order to escape this, Logan is now forced to become a Runner. Logan meets Jessica and explains his intention to run. They meet with the underground group that leads them to the periphery of the city.

Logan learns that the ankh symbol is actually a key that unlocks an exit from the city. They come out into a frozen cave, with Francis following closely behind. In the cave, they meet Box, a robot designed to capture food for the city from the outside. Logan discovers, to his horror, that Box also captures escaped Runners and freezes them for food. Before Box can freeze Logan and Jessica, they escape, causing the cave to collapse on the robot.

Once outside, Logan and Jessica notice that their life clocks are no longer operational. They see the Sun for the first time and discover that the remains of human civilization have become a wilderness. They explore an old, seemingly abandoned city which was once Washington, D.C. In the ruins of the United States Senate chamber, they discover an elderly man living with many cats. His appearance is a shock to them, since neither has ever seen anyone over the age of thirty. The old man recounts what he remembers about what happened to humanity outside the city, and Logan realizes that Sanctuary has always been a myth.

However, Francis has followed them and he and Logan fight. Logan fatally wounds Francis; as he dies, Francis sees that Logan's life clock is now clear and assumes Logan has renewed. Logan and Jessica persuade the old man to return to the city with them as proof that life exists outside the domed city. Leaving the man outside, the two enter the city via an underwater tunnel and try to convince everyone that Carrousel is a lie and unnecessary. The two are captured by other Sandmen and taken to the computer, which interrogates Logan about Procedure 033-03 and asks if he completed his mission.

Logan insists, "There is no Sanctuary". What he had found was "old ruins, exposed", "an old man", and that the missing Runners were "all frozen”. These answers are not accepted by the computer, even after scanning Logan's mind, and the computer overloads, causing the city's systems to fail violently and release the exterior seals. Logan, Jessica, and the other citizens flee the ruined city. Once outside, the citizens see the old man, the first human they have met who is older than thirty, proving that they can, indeed, live their lives much longer.

Dr. Harry Wolper is an eccentric medical professor teaching at a small Southern California college who is obsessed with making a clone of his wife Lucy who died in childbirth 30 years earlier. Harry hires Boris Lafkin, a struggling pre-med student as his personal assistant to help him with his experiments by obtaining lab equipment and working in his backyard shed in exchange for which Harry gives Boris love life advice in courting an attractive coed named Barbara who slowly becomes smitten with Boris. To continue his research into cloning, Harry meets and employs a young woman, named Meli, who practically moves in with him on an agreement to contribute her ovary sample as part of the cloning progress. Meli slowly falls for the much older Harry who begins to question his ethics and vision of true love. Meanwhile, a rival of Harry's, fellow medical professor Dr. Sid Kuhlenbeck, tries to investigate and hinder Harry's cloning plans as part of a ploy to remove Harry from the university to take over Harry's lab for himself. Dr. Kuhlenbeck's plan is to have Harry reassigned to Northfield, an outlying branch of the university where no actual research is conducted, and which apparently serves as little more than a place to send older scientists. Kuhlenbeck's plan backfires after Harry successfully earns a sizable research grant. Because grants are given to individuals, and not institutions, the grant money follows Harry to Northfield, much to Kuhlenbeck's chagrin.

Barbara suffers an aneurysm and is hospitalised by Sid. Her parents welcome Boris into their hearts, but are advised to turn off her life support despite his protestations. Harry gains some time for Boris to talk to Barbara in her coma, and eventually she wakes up. Harry pours his dead wife’s cells into the sea and marries Meli. Everyone chooses to follow him to Northfield.

A field training exercise of each platoon tackling an obstacle course carrying a pole ends in disaster as Jones' section, consisting of Walker, Frazer, Pike and Godfrey, end up falling in the water. Captain Mainwaring later discusses with Sergeant Wilson how he would prefer to have much younger men in his platoon. At that moment, Wilson presents Mainwaring with a letter from the war office which states that the oldest members of the Home Guard will be transferred to ARP and the younger, more fitter ARP Wardens will be transferred into the Home Guard. Mainwaring is appalled at the idea of losing his men and having members of 'Hodges' rabble' in his platoon, but Wilson points out everyone is at risk.

Mainwaring worries that he too might be transferred into the ARP, so he buys himself a wig, while Sergeant Wilson has acquired a corset (or "gentleman's abdominal support", as he calls it). They both try to hide it, but Mainwaring quickly figures out Wilson, who admits he's doing it not for vanity, but to stay with the unit. Mainwaring then shows off his wig, only for Wilson to start laughing uncontrollably. Members of the platoon start to notice odd things about Mainwaring, so when Mainwaring catches Pike trying to look under his hat, he reveals his wig to the entire platoon, and also tells them of the upcoming parade where the Area Commander will decide who will be transferred.

Upon learning of this, Corporal Jones and Private Godfrey visit Private Frazer's funeral parlour late one night and tell him that "If any of the platoon are going to be put in the ARP, it'll be us three cause we're the oldest." Frazer then agrees to perform a makeover on Jones and Godfrey, as well as himself, in order to make them look younger. In the meantime, Chief Warden Hodges is also worried of being put into the Home Guard so he purchases some grey 'hair dye' courtesy of Private Walker, which is actually white ceiling paint mixed with gum arabic. Hodges later showboats this to the platoon, although Walker subtly laughs "Wait till he tries to get it off."

When Mainwaring learns of the drastic measures that Frazer, Jones and Godfrey have gone through in order to stay in the platoon, he does not approve, but states that "it's too late to do anything about it now." After the inspection, in which none of the Home Guard members were selected to join the ARP, Mainwaring is stunned when Colonel Pritchard quietly congratulates Mainwaring for once again demonstrating initiative in a crisis, adding that he didn't see anything. Moments later it begins to rain heavily, causing the make-up on the three soldiers' faces to run.

Following the surrender of the great leader Geronimo, Massai — the last Apache warrior — is captured and sent on a prison train to a reservation in Florida. But he manages to escape in Oklahoma and heads back to his homeland to win back his woman and settle down to grow crops. His pursuers have other ideas, though.

Teenager Julia is orphaned after her parents and housekeeper die in a car accident on the east coast. She is taken in by her aunt Leslie and uncle Tom at their ranch in California, along with their teenage children Rachel and Peter and adolescent son, Bobby. Rachel is initially thrilled at the thought of having a girl her age around the house and even offers to split her bedroom with her cousin, but Julia seems painfully shy. The family takes note of her strange accent, which is uncharacteristic from the east coast. Trying to open up, Julia gets a makeover and develops a more sophisticated façade.

One day, Rachel's horse Sundance attacks Julia and tries to trample her. Julia recovers and begins ingratiating herself into the family. Odd things continue to happen—after having earlier found a human tooth among Julia's belongings, Rachel discovers a photo of herself missing, and shortly after finds in Julia's dresser drawers burned hair from her fallen horse. Soon Rachel's face breaks out in hives, preventing her from attending a dance. Julia accompanies Rachel's boyfriend Mike instead, borrowing a dress that Rachel had made for herself. Soon after Julia begins dating Mike, while forging a close friendship with Carolyn, Rachel's best friend. The day after the dance, Rachel enters into a competition with Sundance, where the horse is spooked, breaking its leg in the process and forcing a vet to euthanize it.

Rachel speaks to their neighbor, Professor Jarvis, who tells her it may indeed be the work of someone who practices black magic. She looks in Julia's drawer to find evidence to show Jarvis and discovers a missing photo covered in red paint spots. Before she can show him the evidence however, the professor collapses and is rushed to the hospital. A letter that Julia receives from a friend gets the best of Rachel's curiosity. Rachel phones the friend in Boston and discovers that Julia supposedly sings in her school's glee club. Knowing that the person living in her house doesn't have any interest in music, Rachel further suspects something is not right. Immersing herself in books on the occult, Rachel starts to believe Julia is a witch. During a visit to the professor at the hospital, he tells her that true witches cannot appear in photographs. The next day, Rachel encourages her mother to take pictures of a reluctant Julia. Tensions reach a boiling point when Leslie plans a road trip and Rachel finds a map with burn marks on it. Rachel believes Julia is planning on causing her mother to have an accident, and subsequently witnesses Julia making overt sexual advances on her father.

Too late to stop Leslie from leaving on the trip, Rachel develops the roll of film herself and clearly sees that her suspicions have been correct all along—Julia is nowhere to be found in the photos. Suddenly, Julia comes into the darkroom, burning the pictures and revealing that she is Sarah Brown, the housekeeper, not Rachel's cousin Julia. The two have a fierce struggle, before Rachel manages to break away, locking the door to the developing room. She then evades her father, apparently under the housekeeper's spell. Sarah breaks out of the room, her eyes a ghastly white and red. Rachel rushes to Mike and tells him to get in his car so they can find her mother. Sarah takes off after them, hitting Mike's car and driving them off the road. On foot, Rachel and Mike catch sight of Rachel's mother, whose car causes Sarah to drive off a cliff to a fiery explosion below. The Bryant family tries to return to normal, adopting a new horse. Meanwhile, another family welcomes Julia into their home, posing as a nanny.

The plot revolves around the convention of the Honeywell Rubber Company in Atlantic City. Throughout the film, the employees of Honeywell Rubber are mainly concerned with drinking and sex. President J.B. Honeywell (Grant Mitchell) is to choose a new company salesmanager. T.R. Kent (Adolphe Menjou) and George Ellerbe (Guy Kibbee) are two salesmen who both want the job. However, they both get into trouble: T.R. is discredited when jealous saleswoman Arlene Dale (Mary Astor) interferes with his attempted seduction of Honeywell's daughter Claire (Patricia Ellis) and George attempts to seduce Nancy Lorraine (Joan Blondell). The position of sales manager is bestowed upon a drunken employee as a bribe after he catches J.B. about to visit "Daisy La Rue, Exterminator".

The game begins as Invictus Thrax (voiced by Sean Pertwee) recounts how the Roman Empire under the reign of noble Emperor Trajan fell into the command of the despotic and sadistic consular, Arruntius (voiced by Chris Jojo), after Trajan's mysterious death. Arruntius ascended to the Imperial throne and brought forth an age of tyranny and destruction for Rome and turned the city of Rome into a personal playground dubbed Arruntium where gladiators fought and died in the streets for Arruntius’ twisted entertainment as its godhead. Thrax describes how he was once the gladiator champion of Trajan before he being sent to fight in the Colosseum by Arruntius to eliminate the last of Trajan's supporters.

Thrax is killed by an unknown force after defeating the other gladiators and is sent to the afterlife of Elysium where he encounters the masked childlike spirits of Romulus and Remus (voiced by James Peter Gale) who reveal to Thrax that Arruntius assassinated Trajan with the aid of black arts from the dark gods of terror and fear and rogue children of Mars, Phobos and Deimos (voiced by Chris Jojo and Jayne Dowell), and used the popular support of bribed senators to take possession of the Imperial Throne. The brother spirits proclaim that Thrax had been chosen by the Roman Gods to act as their champion due to Arruntius’ reign weakening the powers of the gods in order to kill Arruntius, prevent the death of Rome at his hands, and restore the glory of Rome and the Gods. Thrax agrees to act as their champion and travels Elysium with powers gifted from the Gods gained through completing trials to battle and defeat various monsters of myth and the dreaded Phobos and Deimos to recover the life force of Rome, represented by a decayed rendition of the Capitoline Wolf which Thrax helps rebuild after defeating both gods.

Thrax is brought back to life by the brother spirits and fights against Arruntius’ gladiators in the Colosseum before Arruntius decides to murder his daughter Lavinia (voiced by Spomenka Mladenovic) as a sacrifice to resurrect Phobos and Deimos to destroy Thrax. Thrax manages to destroy the dark gods thanks to the powers gifted by the Roman Gods, and finally kills Arruntius by throwing his sword into Arruntius’ chest. Romulus and Remus then appear to congratulate Thrax on his victory before rewarding Thrax his life and his freedom under order of Jupiter. The brother sprits then inform Thrax they may have need of his services again for future battles, but Thrax refuses by asserting his status as a free man and that he would fight for Rome again at a time of his choosing after exploring his new life outside of the life of gladiator. The game ends as Thrax recites passages from “The Coliseum At Rome” by Lord Byron detailing the life and death of gladiators.

Some time in the future (as evidenced by technology in use that is much more advanced than in the first story), Norton—a man of about forty—is living a life of nomadic wandering when a ghost named Gawain asks him to father a child to his wife, Orlene, with whom Norton eventually falls in love. Gaea, the Incarnation of Nature, makes the child in Gawain's likeness so his bloodline would continue. Unfortunately, due to a recessive disease that runs in Gawain's family, the child dies. Orlene commits suicide shortly after.

Mourning Orlene, Norton resumes his travels, during which he is approached by Gawain. Trying to make up for his blunder, the ghost notifies Norton the office of Time (Chronos), who rules over all Earthly aspects of time, will be opening. Gawain explains that the person who holds the office of Chronos lives backwards in time until the moment of their birth or conception-no one in the book is sure of which. The ghost explains that, by living backwards, Norton can continue to see Orlene, since she is still alive in the past. Norton accepts, and Gawain leads him to the spot where the future office holder of Time, Norton's predecessor, will pass the hourglass onto Norton.

Norton immediately starts living life backwards in time, though he can temporarily go forward to interact with others. However, when he is living backwards, he is not visible to mortals. Norton experiments with his hourglass, recognised by all the Incarnations as being the most powerful magical device in the world, to halt and/or reverse time, travel many millions of years into the Earth's past, and work with the Incarnation of Fate, who needs his hourglass to help fix tangles in her threads of fate.

Because Norton lives backwards in time, his past is everyone else's future, making him an isolated character even among the other Incarnations. He also realises that this will make it impossible to have a relationship with the forward-living Orlene. He does, however, have an affair with Clotho, the youngest aspect of Fate. This is both awkward and intriguing to Norton since her past is his future.

At his new residence in Purgatory, Norton is then visited by Satan, who informs Norton that while he can travel anywhere in time with his hourglass, he cannot leave Earth. Satan claims to have the power to travel the whole universe, since evil permeates all of reality, and gives Norton some samples of this ability by having him travel to other planets where, Satan claims, time flows backwards, allowing Norton to live normally and to get involved in both a space opera ("Bat Durston and the BEMS") and an epic fantasy adventure. Satan offers Norton the ability to have that power if Norton will grant Satan a favour; to go back in time 20 years and save a man from committing suicide.

Norton goes back in time to check out this young man, but after consulting with the other Incarnations, he is informed that this man is the current office holder of the Incarnation of Death (Thanatos—in other words, Zane, from the previous novel) and that it is Zane's attempted suicide that brought him to that position. This man is needed as Thanatos to protect his girlfriend, Luna Kaftan, from Satan's mischief so she can go into politics and fulfill a prophecy of thwarting Satan.

However, a relic Satan had given Norton turned out to be a demon in disguise. When Norton went back in time, the demon disembarked a few years in the past to prevent Luna from going into politics (the demon gives an incumbent politician an antidote to keep him alive so Luna doesn't take his position in an emergency election). Due to some of the limitations of the hourglass, intercepting this demon is difficult, but Norton eventually manages to stop it.

Not giving up, Satan tries one more time by trapping Norton on one of the other planets he had an adventure on. Not sure how to get back home, Norton starts toying with the hourglass, travelling all the way back to the beginning of the observable universe and all the way to its end (from the Big Bang to the point where all matter became trapped in black holes). He realizes his adventures were not on other planets but elaborate stages on Earth, Satan having used brainwashed actors and Chronos's hourglass to control the flow of time to manipulate Norton.

Norton then finds out that the demon that created the illusion had been attached to him and, once again, disembarked at a point in the past, two years after the events of the first book, to begin a campaign to discredit Luna so she doesn't run for office. Norton then goes back in time to this point and uses his hourglass to show the world all the bad things that will happen if Luna doesn't get elected. No longer fooled by Satan's illusion, Norton discovers he can trap Satan in a time loop. Defeated, Satan stops trying to exploit him.

At around the time of World War I, a 21-year-old Irish woman named Niobe has a marriage arranged by her parents. Her husband-to-be is a 16-year-old boy named Cedric Kaftan. She considers him too immature, but can find no way out of the marriage. Although Niobe at first hates being married to Cedric, his good nature, kindheartedness, and desire to make her happy and keep safe win her over, and she falls in love with him. Cedric shows himself to be an intellectual prodigy. With some prodding and nurturing from his wife, Cedric accepts a scholarship to attend college and hone his magical abilities. He matures and finds his niche in magic and wetland studies, and he and Niobe have a child, Cedric Jr. A few years later, Cedric is assassinated by agents of Satan as part of a plot. Niobe petitions the Incarnations of Immortality to Cedric, only to he died because she was the target and Cedric died in her place. Niobe's anger at her husband's life being cut short makes her vow to make Satan pay.

She is invited to take the place of one of three women sharing a physical body as different aspects of the Incarnation of Fate. Eager to thwart Satan's plans and avenge Cedric, she leaves her child with Cedric's cousin and becomes Clotho, the youngest aspect of the Fates. The Fates weave the tapestry of life and have discretion over the length of human lives and the pattern they produce. Clotho, the youngest, spins the threads from the substance of Void to create souls, Lachesis, the middle aspect, measures the threads, and Atropos, the oldest, cuts the thread of each individual human. When she becomes Clotho, Niobe must journey to the edge of the Void without aid from the other Fates and replenish her stock of thread-material.

Because incarnations do not age, Niobe spends many years as Clotho. She frequently visits her son, Cedric Jr., who has befriended Cedric's younger cousin, Pacian. Because her lack of ageing would be noticed, she takes the form of the grandmotherly Atropos, pretending to be a concerned family friend. One day the Fates take the two boys to a fortune teller, who gives them disturbing news. Each of the boys are to marry the most beautiful women of their generation. Each marriage will produce a daughter who will oppose a tangle in the threads of life. One of the girls will marry Death, and the other is fated to marry Evil.

Pacian’s daughter eventually weds Cedric Jr. but Pacian’s wife dies at the wedding. Niobe realizes she is destined to marry Pacian and despite them both resisting, fall in love and wed after she leaves the office of Clotho. She gives birth to a daughter they name Orb. At around the same time, Cedric Jr., now a powerful magician, has a daughter named Luna. The girls grow up together under the magician's protection. One day, the girls and Niobe leave on a quest for powerful artifacts that will enhance their natural talents. Satan uses the opportunity to send demons against them; although he knows one of the girls is fated to marry him, he is not interested in a wife who is not evil. Niobe keeps the girls safe, and Satan's plot comes to nothing.

A year after the events of ''On a Pale Horse'', the now middle-aged Niobe is again asked to join the Incarnation of Fate, this time as Lachesis. Satan has arranged that all three offices become vacant at the same time, making the Incarnation of Fate inexperienced in all three aspects simultaneously. The current officeholders hope to use Niobe's previous experience as an ace in the hole to thwart Satan's latest plot.

They learn that Satan plans to cause political turmoil in the UN by having one of his minions plant a stink bomb. They are forced to spend time investigating likely minions one by one, while in the meantime Satan offers ageing political candidates a chance at renewed youth and the chance to start over in their careers, in exchange for their resignation from office. He plans to replace them with his own minions who would work against Luna. Realizing that their inexperience is a liability, the Fates seek help. They learn that Niobe's magician son can help them. Unfortunately he is now in Hell. Satan cannot prevent them from searching for him, but he can make the quest very unpleasant and one of them must risk her own soul in the process. Niobe is worried that Satan will cheat, so she arranges for the Incarnation of War to supervise the contest.

Niobe leaves the Fates' collective body and goes to Hell. She must beat Satan's challenge—a puzzle-maze—to get the answers she needs. Eventually, she finds her son, but Satan has cast an illusion over him. She solves the puzzle anyway—and learns that Satan's plot can be stopped by Atropos. Satan’s minions falsely believe their service will get them better treatment in hell. If Fate were to tell them truth and that Atropos will cut their lives short, they would no longer serve him. By issuing this threat, Niobe wins the game and is allowed to leave Hell freely.

Parry, an orphan, is taken in and is accidentally adopted by a wizard who teaches him the benefits of white magic and how it can be used to help others. A musician and adept white magician, Parry plans on following in his father's footsteps when he is encouraged by his father, the sorcerer, to take a bride. Parry selects Jolie, seeing her potential despite her ragged appearance. Using his unique singing talents, Parry convinces Jolie that he means no harm. Taking her in, Parry and his father begin to teach Jolie the ways of wizardry and they begin to fall in love. With his father's blessing, Parry and Jolie wed and are about to start a life of bliss when they are attacked by crusaders of Christianity. Parry's father is killed in the attack and Parry escapes in bird form while his wife Jolie had gone ahead to warn her parents to go to the pre-determined hidden shelter. Unfortunately by the time Parry gets to town to check on his wife, she has been taken prisoner by the crusaders, who capture Parry himself shortly after he arrives. Working in conjunction with his wife, since he possesses a magical second sight, he frees them both but not before Jolie is slain by the dying Captain who was going to rape her. Taking off in horse form with Jolie strapped to his back, Parry arrives at the shelter and tries to heal her wounds but is lacking in medical supplies to save her. Parry watches as his wife dies in his arms. Due to special circumstances, Jolie's soul cannot immediately go to Heaven, so at Parry's request, Thanatos binds her spirit to a drop of blood on Parry's wrist. Vowing vengeance, Parry thinks the best way to escape from the villagers is to hide in plain sight, so he joins a monastery for sanctuary as well as a means to destroy the enemy. Soon after joining the Franciscan friars, Parry discovers that a new order, the Dominicans, are being formed with the express purpose of rooting out evil and heresy. Because of his keen mind and magical prowess (which he uses in secrecy), he becomes a feared inquisitor. During one of his many trips to stop Lucifer's campaign of Evil, Parry succumbs to the temptation of his ghostly wife Jolie inhabiting a physical body, thus violating his oath of celibacy.

As retribution, Lucifer sends forth Lilah (alternately known as Lilith), a demoness, to corrupt him. By using the toehold of his broken oath of celibacy and his own feelings of sexual desire and guilt, Lilah corrupts Parry to Evil. His intense desire for Lilah eventually leads him to corrupt the Inquisition itself. Upon his deathbed, Lucifer attacks Lilah; with his last vestige of strength, Parry manages a magical counterattack against Lucifer, saving Lilah. Lucifer, taken off guard, is defeated. Though Parry's magic was far weaker than that of Lucifer, his spell was able to work because Jolie's good spirit (which still resided in the drop of blood on Parry's wrist) was immune to Lucifer's powers. As a severely weakened Parry lays dying with only moments to live, Lilah tells him to claim the office before it finds a different successor, as well as to name the form he would like to assume (he chooses his body at the age of 25). Parry, not understanding what she's asking of him and wanting to honour this last wish before he succumbs to death, does as Lilah requests, and is suddenly transformed into the new Incarnation of Evil and takes the name Satan. (It is later explained that if no one claims the office, it seeks out the most qualified person for that position. So if Parry hadn't claimed the office as Lilah had told him, it would have found the most evil person on earth to take Lucifer's place.)

In ''For Love of Evil'', several scenes from the previous books (as is the case with all the books in the series with respect to their Incarnations) are shown from Parry's point of view. Parry also does not believe himself to be evil, but is simply fulfilling his function as an Incarnation. It is rather ironic that Parry is not actually evil, but all of the other Incarnations (Thanatos, Gaea, Chronos, Mars, and Fate) naturally expect him to be. Parry wants to defeat God so that he can create a better way to separate the good souls from the bad, and he takes no pleasure in causing unnecessary suffering in the mortal world (the other Incarnations obviously believe that Parry's reasons for wanting to defeat God are more nefarious). In fact, Parry, as a personal favour to YHWH (the incarnation of the God of the Jews, called JHVH in this book), manages to prevent the Holocaust from happening.

Upon taking office, Parry approached the other Incarnations in good faith, but was rebuffed and/or humiliated by them since they allied with God. Only Chronos offered friendship. This led to Parry being enemies with many of these Incarnations and their successors. Parry was friends with several holders of the office of Chronos, but eventually the Chronos officeholders became hostile to him as well.

Parry also attempted to meet with the Incarnation of Good to figure out how to best sort out which souls belonged in Heaven and which in Hell (Parry had no desire for souls that didn't belong in Hell to be there), but was not successful. The Incarnation of Good was too busy contemplating his own greatness to pay any attention. Instead he strikes a bargain with the Archangel Gabriel: if Parry cannot corrupt one influential individual or her children or grandchildren to shift the balance of the world to evil, he must give up his quest. That individual was Niobe Kaftan—meaning Parry had to wait six centuries before he could act. Lilah served as his main consort through the centuries, but when he assigns her to seduce Mym, the Incarnation of War, she falls in love with him and deserts Parry, depressing him.

Later Parry meets Orb, Niobe's daughter who is slated to become the next Gaea, and decides to court her in the hope that he could later take advantage of Gaea's powers to defeat God. The other Incarnations oppose Parry's plan, but eventually they all come to an agreement: the other Incarnations promise not to interfere with Parry's courtship of Orb if he tells her the truth about his identity prior to asking her to marry him. Posing as a mortal named Natasha, Parry manages to win Orb's heart. When she becomes Gaea, he reveals to her that he is the Incarnation of Evil and asks her to marry him. In a fit of rage, Orb nearly destroys the world with her powers, and to undo that destruction, she needs Parry's help. Thus she agrees to marry him, and even admits that she still loves him despite his true identity. At the wedding Parry surprises everyone by singing Amazing Grace, which causes him to vacate his office. With no one to take his place, the office automatically goes to the most evil person on earth, a cruel murderer and child rapist. After a battle of wits, Parry eventually reclaims his office, to the relief of the other Incarnations who prefer Parry's doctrine of necessary evil over the murder-rapist's sadism. The Incarnations come to realise at the end that Parry is not truly evil in the traditional sense; rather, he works to facilitate evil on earth because that is a necessary part of the process to determine whether souls belong in Heaven or Hell.

Unable to consummate his marriage to Orb due to their offices being traditionally opposed, Parry initially becomes depressed. But then the spirit of Jolie co-inhabiting the body of Orb comes to him one night and explains that he and the two loves of his life can occasionally spend time together as long as they do so in secret. In the end, Parry is happy and resumes his duties as the Incarnation of Evil.

In the seventh novel of the series, three women—the ghost of Jolie, the ghost of Orlene (daughter of Orb), and a fifteen-year-old drug-addicted prostitute named Vita—try to discover a way to restore the life of Orlene's baby, Gawain II, who had died as a result of a severe birth defect inflicted unknowingly by Gaea at the request of the child's ghost father Gawain. Nox, the mysterious Incarnation of Night, promises to help, but she needs a specific item of great value from each of the other Incarnations in order to resurrect the baby. The three women set out to meet with each of the other seven Incarnations of Day.

In the process of obtaining the items, they conclude that the definitions of Good and Evil used to classify souls as destined for Heaven and Hell are flawed. Orlene's soul had been denied access to Heaven because she committed suicide in a futile attempt to help her baby. Vita meets and comes under the protection of an older male judge; they fall in love and have sex, but this too is considered Evil, because Vita is below the legal age of consent. The three women eventually succeed in gaining the item from each one of the Incarnations, with the exception of God, the Incarnation of Good, who has become obsessed with his own greatness and is completely unresponsive to the outside world.

Reporting their discovery to the other Incarnations, they all conclude that God has been derelict in his duty and must be replaced so that the eventual triumph of Evil can be prevented. Luna Kaftan, now an influential Senator, begins a campaign to impeach God and declare the office of the Incarnation of Good vacant. Thus, the final conflict between Good and Evil becomes a political one, fought with words and votes in the halls of a legislature, and not by armies on a battlefield.

Despite Satan's efforts, Luna's campaign succeeds, and a mortal must now be chosen to become the new Incarnation of Good. However, the replacement must be selected by a unanimous vote of all the other Incarnations, including Satan himself—and why would the Incarnation of Evil approve a candidate who would effectively promote the cause of Good? Each Incarnation, in turn, nominates a mortal for the position. (Gaea's nominee happens to be the same judge that became Vita's lover.)

After all the other Incarnations make their suggestions, to their complete amazement, Satan nominates Orlene, whose soul had become exactly half evil as a result of choices none of the other Incarnations were willing to condemn. The other Incarnations immediately agree that Satan has made the best possible choice, and they unanimously declare Orlene to be the new Incarnation of Good.

Therefore, the girls find that Nox had set up the items from the other Incarnations to help Orlene take the place of God and in doing so, become God herself. In return, Orlene allows Nox to keep Gawain II as she will no longer be able to care for him and the child is content with the Incarnation of Night.

During a softball game at an American oil company housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda terrorists set off a bomb, killing Americans and Saudis. While one team hijacks a car and shoots residents, a suicide bomber wearing a fake police uniform blows himself up, killing everyone near him. Sergeant Haytham of the Saudi State Police kills the carjackers. The FBI Legal Attaché in Saudi Arabia, Special Agent Fran Manner, calls his US colleague, Special Agent Ronald Fleury, to advise him about the attack. Manner is discussing the situation with DSS Special Agent Rex Burr when an ambulance full of explosives is detonated, killing Manner, Burr, and many others.

At FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Fleury briefs his rapid deployment team on the attack. Although the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. State Department hinder FBI efforts to investigate the attack, Fleury blackmails the Saudi ambassador into allowing an FBI investigative team into Saudi Arabia. Fleury gathers Special Agent Janet Mayes, a forensic examiner, FBI analyst Adam Leavitt, an intelligence analyst, and Special Agent Grant Sykes, a bomb technician, to go to Saudi Arabia. On arrival they are met by Colonel Faris al-Ghazi, the commander of the Saudi State Police Force providing security at the compound. The investigation is being run by General Al Abdulmalik of the SANG, who does not give Fleury and his team permission to investigate.

The FBI team is invited to the palace of Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Khaled for a dinner. While at the palace, Fleury persuades the Prince that Colonel al-Ghazi is a natural detective and should be allowed to lead the investigation. With this change in leadership, the Americans are allowed hands-on access to the crime scene. While searching for evidence, Sergeant Haytham and Sykes discover the second bomb was detonated in an ambulance. Fleury learns the brother of one of the dead terrorists had access to ambulances and police uniforms. Colonel al-Ghazi orders a special forces team to raid a house, managing to kill a few heavily armed terrorists. Following the raid, the team discovers clues, including photos of the U.S. and other Western embassies in Riyadh. Soon afterward, the U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Damon Schmidt notifies Fleury and his team that they have been ordered to return to the United States.

On their way to King Khalid International Airport, their convoy is attacked and incapacitated. Leavitt is dragged out of the wrecked car and kidnapped while Fleury manages to wound one attacker. Al-Ghazi commandeers a civilian vehicle to chase the fourth SUV and the other car holding Leavitt into the dangerous Al-Suwaidi neighborhood of Riyadh. As they pull up, a gunman fires rocket-propelled grenades at them and a fierce firefight starts. Leavitt is tied up inside a complex.

While Sykes and Haytham watch the entrance to the complex, al-Ghazi, Fleury, and Mayes follow a blood trail and kill many gunmen inside. Mayes, separated from the others, finds Leavitt and his attackers, preparing an execution video of Leavitt. She kills the remaining insurgents, and al-Ghazi and the team start to leave. Fleury then realizes there is a trail of blood leading to the back of the apartment. After they enter, Mayes comforts a girl in the apartment and offers her candy. In return, the girl offers Mayes a marble, similar to those embedded in the bodies of some bombing victims. Al-Ghazi sees the grandfather, reaches out with his hand, and offers to help him stand. When the old man gives him his hand, al-Ghazi sees that the man is missing the same fingers as Abu Hamza al-Masri in the terrorist group's many videos and confirms his suspicion that the grandfather is the terrorist leader. Abu Hamza's teenage grandson walks out of the bedroom and shoots al-Ghazi in the neck, then he starts to point his gun at Mayes, prompting Fleury to kill him. Abu Hamza then pulls out an assault rifle and Haytham kills him. As Abu Hamza dies, another grandchild hugs him and Abu Hamza whispers something into his ear to calm the child down. Al-Ghazi dies in Fleury's arms.

At al-Ghazi's house, Fleury and Haytham meet his family. Fleury tells his son that al-Ghazi was his good friend, mirroring a similar scene earlier in the movie wherein he comforted Special Agent Manner's son. Fleury and his team return to the United States, where they are commended by FBI Director James Grace for their outstanding work. Leavitt asked Fleury and Mayes what he had whispered to her to calm her down earlier in the film. The scene cuts to Abu Hamza's daughter asking her own son what his grandfather whispered to him as he was dying. The grandson tells his mother, "Don't fear them, my child. We are going to kill them all," a similar line to what Fleury had whispered to Mayes.

On a stormy night in March 1980, a distraught Jean Harris arrives at the baronial Purchase, New York home of Herman Tarnower following a five-hour drive from McLean, Virginia. Her goal is to commit suicide beside the pond on his estate after confronting her former lover, who spurned her in favor of his considerably younger secretary-receptionist Lynne Tryforos.

When Jean removes a gun from her handbag, Tarnower attempts to take it away from her, and in the struggle he accidentally is shot and collapses. Because the phone isn't working, Jean drives off to seek help from a neighbor, only to return to the house when she sees a police car heading in that direction.

The film then follows divergent paths, using flashbacks and flashforwards to tell the story of the couple's initial meeting, their evolving and eventually faltering relationship, the night of the shooting, and Jean's consequent trial for murder. A divorced mother of two sons, she tends to be complacent in both her personal and professional lives, the ideal target for Herman, a vulgar man with the need to be in total control of everyone and everything. He proposes marriage and presents Jean with a ring she feels is embarrassingly large and overly gaudy for the headmistress of a private girls' school. As time passes, she presses him to set a wedding date, until he finally confesses he has changed his mind about marrying her, primarily because he has no interest in playing the role of father to her sons. Jean attempts to return the ring, but he insists she keep it, and, instead of allowing her to make a clean break from the relationship, he continues to manipulate her by taking advantage of her need for a dominant presence in her life. By prescribing numerous medications to which she becomes addicted, he forces her to become both physically and emotionally dependent upon him while he flaunts his many affairs with other women.

During Jean's trial, a flashback to the night of the shooting shows it in a very different light from the earlier portrayal. An angry Jean willfully and methodically shoots Herman and coldly watches him writhe in pain, but on the witness stand she insists it was an accident. Her staunch refusal to allow attorney Joel Aurnou to portray her former lover in a bad light prevents him from presenting any details that would support a defense of extreme emotional disturbance. Consequently, she is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years to life in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County.

A "skybike", a one-man, open-cockpit flying machine, attacks Dogen. Dogen shoots it down and finds one of Syn's crystals on the pilot's body. Carved into the crystal is a symbol of a dead tree. Dogen finds a murdered prospector, whose young daughter Dhyana saw him killed by Baal, Jared Syn's half-cyborg son. Baal sprayed the man with a green liquid that caused a nightmare dream-state, in which Syn appeared and executed him with a crystal. Dogen convinces Dhyana to help him find Syn.

Dhyana takes Dogen to Zax, who identifies the crystal as a lifeforce storage device. Dhyana tells them about the ancient Cyclopians who once used such devices and says the only power against it is a magic mask located in their lost city. Zax affirms this and directs Dogen to find a prospector named Rhodes in the nearby mining town of Zhor.

Dogen and Dhyana are blocked by vehicles driven by nomads commanded by Baal, who sprays Dogen with the green liquid, paralyzing him. Dhyana drives them off and cares for Dogen, who in the dream world finds Syn and Baal looming over him. Syn fails to pull Dogen away from Dhyana: their will is too strong. Dogen awakes, but Dhyana is suddenly teleported away. A summoned monster appears in her place and fires electric bolts at him. Dhyana simultaneously faces Syn in his lair. Dogen shorts-out the creature, and it vanishes.

Dogen arrives in Zhor and finds Rhodes, a washed-up soldier, in a bar. Rhodes denies the lost city's existence and refuses to get involved. Dogen leaves and comes upon a group of miners beating a captured nomad soldier. Dogen assists him, and the miners turn hostile. Dogen is out-gunned until Rhodes helps him defeat the miners.

Rhodes reluctantly agrees to help Dogen. Deep into Cyclopian territory, Dogen locates a large statue with a single eye and finds the crystal mask. Suddenly attacked by snake-like creatures, they escape, until they are accosted by a group of nomad warriors. Their leader, Hurok, grabs the mask from Dogen and accuses them of trespassing – a capital crime. Rhodes cites nomad law that a warrior can fight for his freedom, so Dogen duels Hurok. When Dogen spares his life, Hurok accepts Dogen as a friend and frees him.

Syn takes Dhyana before a massive crystal and forces her to touch it. Syn says the crystal is powered by captured souls, including that of her father. Dhyana, disgusted, says her warrior will come for her. Elsewhere, Dogen and Rhodes assault Baal's encampment, and a chase ensues. After evading them, Dogen wears the mask and finds himself in the dream world with a burning tree. In his hand he finds an axe and hacks into the tree. The tree moans like the crystal in Syn's camp and trickles a stream of blood. Dogen removes the mask and returns to Rhodes. Baal suddenly attacks, extending his robotic arm to spray Dogen, but Rhodes pushes him out of the way and is knocked out. Dogen, struggling with Baal, rips the robotic limb from his shoulder. Baal flees, and Dogen tracks the green fluid to Syn's camp. He sees the nomads gathered around Syn, and Hurok greets him.

Syn denounces Dogen as an enemy, but Dogen says he has only come for Syn. Hurok refuses to kill Dogen and demands that he be allowed to speak. Dogen says Syn is a liar who wants to enslave them. When the crowd turns hostile to Syn, he activates the crystal, which stuns the crowd. Syn fires blasts at Dogen, but he deflects them with the mask. Baal grabs the mask and it shatters on the ground. Hurok kills Baal, and Syn teleports away. Dogen jumps onto a skybike and chases Syn into the desert, but Syn escapes through an energy portal.

Dogen returns to the nomad camp, finding Dhyana safe with Hurok. Dogen promises to fight Syn if he returns and destroys Syn's soul crystal. Dogen and Dhyana leave the camp on foot but soon encounter Rhodes in Dogen's truck. He picks them up and takes them into town.

The TARDIS lands on a different planet, and Rose 'was, officially, Somewhere Else.' The Doctor isn't sure where they are, and says it was 'like something in the area drew us down...' They walk to the lip of a rise, and see people building pyramids. As they turn, four men, each with a whip and 'futuristic space gun,' are creeping up behind them. A fight ensues, and the Doctor and Rose are captured and taken away in separate ships. The Doctor tells Rose, 'Wherever they take you, I'll get you back.'

The Doctor is taken to a plain grey room. He is scanned, found to be an alien, gassed, and sent away. He wakes to see a short woman who introduces herself as Senator Lazlee Flowers and tells him that he is at SCAT-house (Species-led Creative and Advanced Technologies). She explains that they are on Justice Alpha of the Justica system, which is a prison, and that they should have seen the auto-beacons and deflection barrier warning them to stay away. Aliens go to this planet to work on projects, and can get time off their sentence or royalties for good results.

Rose is put on a shuttle and taken to another planet. Warders Blanc and Norris tell her that she has been assigned to Detention Centre Six on Justica Beta. They tell her that she can put in a plea to the Governor, but right now she needs to leave the ship. She is attacked by a group of inmates, but rescued by Block-walker Dennel.

The Doctor talks to Flowers. She says that his ship can't be entered or moved. He tells her 'I put the handbrake on so we wouldn't go anywhere else in a hurry.' They discuss the difficulties of escape, and she tells him to find out. He puts his hand to a door, and grey globules descend from the roof and stick all over him, preventing him from moving. Flowers says they respond to anti-social behavior as well.

He is temporarily assigned a room with two Slitheen, Dram Fel Fotch and his brother Ecktosca Fel Fotch Heppen-Bar Slitheen. They tell the Doctor that 'the family' has gotten out of 'the family business.' Dram and Ecktosca are searching for their ancestor's personal effects, including their compression fields. They were arrested after being tricked into breaking into a building on Justica Delta.

After breakfast, Rose is assigned to work in the kitchens, where some other inmates cause trouble that she is blamed for. She is taken to see the governor, and sees a flickering blue light coming out of his office accompanied by a really bad smell. She is sure he is a Slitheen, especially since he is a large person, but she can't see a zipper and he claims the flickering light was a malfunctioning desk lamp. He sentences Rose to a minimum of 25 years in prison.

The next morning, the grey globs grab the Doctor and take him to a room with a variety of aliens working on a gravity experiment. The Doctor and one of the other aliens (a Sucrosian named Nesshalop) come up with a breakthrough within a few minutes, but break the console in the process. The globs descend on both of them, causing pain as punishment for the destruction. The translation circuit is also broken, so only the Doctor can give the supervisors the solution.

Rose's second day is much like her first, but the Governor is eating lunch in her block today. She starts a food fight, and in the confusion tackles him so she can look for a zipper. She doesn't find one, and is thrown into solitary confinement.

Flowers goes to see Consul Issabel, the Technocrat Major of Justica Prime. Flowers tells her about the breakthrough, and that the Doctor insists that he needs his astrophysicist friend to finish solving the problem. Issabel says she will think on it. While the Doctor is back in his cell, he goes through the Slitheens' nests, finds a homemade compression field, and deduces that they must have escape plans, which Ecktosca confirms when he catches the Doctor looking at it.

Rose is visited by Warder Norris, who says that he is an undercover agent, because people are vanishing, but hasn't heard from any of his superiors in months. Blanc comes in, kills him easily, and then unzips her head. Rose gets out of her cell, then realizes that's what the Slitheen wanted all along. At the last moment, two other warders come along, sent by the Governor to fetch her.

The Doctor is awoken during the night, and told to come to the meeting room. Flowers is there, and tells him that he will be talking to his expert over videolink. While they wait, they talk about the planetary orbits, and how they are perfect circles, and perfectly spaced for using an amplified gravity wave to open a warp-hole.

Rose is brought into the Governor's office, and sits down to talk to the Doctor. He tells her that there is a test she needs to pass 'with no help.' Flowers asks her the question, and the Doctor tells Rose that if the project works, they will 'get a royalty that could bring in a lot of cash - and we're talking telephone numbers.' When told to be quiet, he tells Rose, 'Mum's the word.' She tells the Doctor that someone might think he's 'sending me a coded message' and he responds 'No. No codes.' So Rose gives them her mum's phone number, and Flowers says it's close, especially since it was a mental calculation, and then asks about the Warp overlay. The Doctor then sneaks the second number to her by talking about the Fowlers' Albert Square address from the EastEnders (Rose had made the Doctor spend a day with her catching up on missed storylines). Issabel tells the Governor to send Rose there immediately. Meanwhile, alarms are going off on Justica Alpha, because the Slitheen have escaped.

Rose is on the shuttle when she sees smoke seeping out from under the bulkhead door. She bangs on the door to the cabin. Eventually the pilot comes out to investigate, and is dragged into the smoky hold when he opens the door. The alarm goes silent, and Block-walker Dennel comes out. He has seen what happened with Norris and Blanc, and thinks he is rescuing Rose. They drag the unconscious pilot to the cabin door and use his hand to open the touchpad. The console starts beeping a countdown, wanting input from the pilot, and when Rose and Dennel try to move him, they realize he's got a zipper in his head.

In order to keep the shuttle moving, they remove the hand skin from the Raxacoricofallapatorian, and use it like a glove to abort the countdown. It wakes up, and they run to the cabin and close the door. Unfortunately, Dennel is knocked against the controls as the pilot beats on the door. They realize the ship is heading for a planet, and Dennel comments, 'The big bad wolf's ready to blow our house down.' When the monster gets in, Rose tells him not to hurt Dennel, but to prevent the ship from crashing. It says that it has orders not to harm them, and starts to work on the controls. In spite of its efforts, the ship crashes.

The Doctor has the gravity workshop constructing the core of an amplifier when Flowers comes in. He asks her about the return of his sonic screwdriver, and then tells her that the orbits of the planets in this system have been changed. When Flowers goes to talk to Issabel, she accidentally sees her remove her skin to reveal a monster that is 'bigger and paler than either Ecktosca or Dram Fel Fotch.' As Flowers tries to sneak away, Ermenshrew (Issabel) hears her and gives chase. She comes across the Doctor, and they take off for the systems hub. The corridor is very narrow, and Ermenshrew has trouble coming after them.

Rose and Dennel are on Justice Delta. The monster tricks Rose into calling for help, knowing that there are no longer any humans on the planet, just more monsters like himself. He also tells her that he is a Blathereen, not a Slitheen.

The Doctor tells Flowers to change the gravity settings to zero. As soon as she does so, the two of them float up to the ceiling shelves where the globs live. The Doctor tells her to switch on the sonic screwdriver (which she had brought along to return to him) for light. There are corridors between the shelves that connect the various rooms of SCAT-house. As they crawl through them, they find Ecktosca and Dram disguised as globs.

Rose awakes Dennel, and the two of them take off through the trees. They come to a clearing that is filled with the remains of all the humans who have gone missing from Justica Beta. They find the monitoring station that the shuttle had crashed into when it landed, and by looking at all the screens, figure out what is happening. They see Warder Robsen appear in the clearing, and run out to get him. They find the portal that he came through, but are unable to make it work.

Ecktosca tells the Doctor and Rose that there are warp-hole pathways joining all the worlds in Justica. The Blathereen are using the work done at SCAT-house to improve and enlarge them. The Doctor realizes that they are what drew the TARDIS. Flowers realizes the portal must be in the aquaculture compound, which has been shut down for months. The four of them make their way there, Ecktosca activates the portal, Dram follows, and then the Doctor and Flowers. They end up in a small room on Justice Delta, and the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to offset the portal and prevent Ermenshrew from following them. As he finishes, they are discovered.

Meanwhile, back on Justica Beta, the prisoners stage a revolt.

Rose, Dennel, and Robsen are running from the Blathereen, when the monitoring station comes crashing past them. They all jump in. Rose sees the Doctor on one of the monitoring screens, and they turn the volume up to hear what is happening.

The Doctor, Flowers, Ecktosca, and Dram are taken to the Blathereen leader, Don Arco. He tells them that what they want to do is create a super-portal that will allow them to move the entire Justica system. Then they will use its suns to burn another system into fissile material to sell. The prisoners remaining in the Justica system will be used to process the material. Then a monitoring platform crashes into the building, and another. The Doctor and Flowers take advantage of the aftermath to escape.

Rose, Dennel and Robsen find that their station is moving faster now that it's out of the trees and approaching the building, so they decide to jump out. They see the Doctor and Flowers emerge from it, and when Rose jumps, the Doctor catches her, but they both fall. He grins and says 'Found you.'

As they talk, Blathereen begin to emerge from the building, and all five take off running for the forest. Suddenly they hear 'cheering and clattering and crashing and shrieking' and see hundreds of detention centre kids coming after the monsters.

Another Slitheen shows up (Callis, the aunt of Ecktosca and Dram), and the three of them, the Doctor, Rose, Robsen, and Flowers head back to Justice Alpha to destroy the work that was done at SCAT-house. Don Arco and Ermenshaw are there ahead of them, starting to activate the project.

The Doctor has Rose and Flowers turn off the gravity again, while Ecktosca, Callis, and Robsen wreck the gravity warp equipment. Dram works on the compression field, and the Doctor heads back to the gravity workshop. They manage to sabotage the works, and when Ermenshrew hits the switch, the room explodes. The Doctor and Rose go back to the TARDIS and leave the system. Dram, Ecktosca and Callis celebrate the fall of the Blathereen and the beginning of "a new golden age of crime" for the Slitheen.

Taylor Brooks and Harold Jameson are white-collar professionals by weekday, and accomplished mountain climbers on weekends. Though they share a love for scaling mountains, the two friends are opposites in their personal lives. Taylor is a thrill-seeking attorney and womanizer, while Harold is a married, level-headed scientist.

On a climb, the pair encounter billionaire Phillip Claiborne, who is accompanied by a team of fellow climbers. Taylor recognizes Dallas from law school, and the team lets slip that they are testing equipment for a Himalayan expedition. That night, two members of Claiborne's team ignore Harold's warnings of an impending avalanche and perish when snow careens down the mountain. Claiborne and the other survivors are rescued, thanks to quick action by Taylor and Harold. At the interment, Taylor begs Claiborne to take him and Harold on his expedition to K2, the second highest peak in the world. Claiborne ultimately allows the duo to fill the hole in his team.

The entire team heads to the Karakoram, in Pakistan, and starts the climb successfully, though Taylor butts heads with Dallas, while Harold feels guilt over leaving his wife for this adventure. As the ascent continues, the team's Balti porters go on strike (mirroring the real-world experiences of several expeditions in the 1970s), and altitude sickness incapacitates Claiborne. A four-man team (Taylor, Harold, Dallas, and Japanese climber Takane) continue toward the summit with minimal gear. They are stopped when Claiborne authorizes (talking via radio) only two men to go for the summit, while two wait in reserve at the high camp. Dallas chooses Takane as his climbing partner, despite argument from Taylor. Later, Takane returns to the high camp badly injured and in severe hypothermia, and dies soon afterward.

Taylor and Harold ascend, "searching for Dallas". After a grueling journey, the pair celebrate at the "top of the world". Their joy is short-lived, however, as Harold slips on the downclimb, breaks his leg badly, and loses the climbing rope. The pain is unbearable, and he cannot be moved. Over Taylor's objections, Harold sends Taylor to save himself, and Taylor begins a solo descent.

By luck, Taylor discovers Dallas' frozen body and scavenges his climbing rope, epinephrine (adrenaline), and an ice axe. Taylor injects Harold with an epinephrine autoinjector and then begins to lower his friend toward base camp, a few dozen feet at a time. They descend, until Taylor collapses on a ridge. Before dark, a Pakistani helicopter comes into view. The climbers are saved and rejoice.

This story opens with the novice narrator described in Panko's introduction providing a literary description of the beauty of Ukraine (then known as ''Little Russia'') and sets the date in August 1800. The main characters of the story, Solopy Cherevik, his wife Khavronya Nikiforovna, and his daughter Paraska, are traveling to the fair to sell some items, including their old mare.

A young man, called the "young man in the white jacket" at first - later we learn his name is Grytsko - finds Paraska beautiful and starts to flirt with her. When her father becomes agitated, the young man makes it known that he is the son of Cherevik's friend and wants to marry Paraska. Cherevik first accepts but later declines because of his constantly enraged spouse and the young man decides to figure out a way to get her, agreeing to give up his oxen for twenty rubles to a gypsy, if he helps him. While Khavronya is having a tryst with Afanasy Ivanovich, a priest's son, they hear a group of people coming to her house, so she quickly has the young man hide up in the rafters. The group comes in and Tsibulya, a friend of Cherevik, begins to tell the tale of the "red jacket," a jacket worn by a demon that was kicked out of hell. The jacket was put into the hands of a Jew, to be returned later, but the Jew sold the jacket and the demon got angry and tormented him by having a number of pig heads appear at his windows. The group gets frightened because the boy in the rafters grunts for a moment, but the storyteller continues. The jacket was eventually found to be cursed, and anyone who possessed it would not be able to sell anything, so it is pawned off to different peasants.

Eventually, one determines he cannot sell his wares because of the jacket and chops it with an axe. It reforms, however, so he crosses himself and does it again, and the demon eventually had to come to collect the pieces of his jacket, and is down to the last fragment at the time the story is taking place.

At the end of the tale, a pig's head appears at the window and the group becomes so frightened that Cherevik, with a basket on his head, runs out of the house while someone is screaming "devil" behind him. His wife jumps on him and they’re found in this state to the amusement of everyone. In the morning, after recovering from the embarrassment, Cherevik takes their mare to be sold at market. When he gets there someone asks him what he's selling and he wonders why they're asking this. Pulling on the harness, which causes him to strike himself in the face, he finds the horse is gone and a bit of a red jacket is left in place. He is accused of stealing his own horse and is bound up in a shed with his friend Tsibulya. The young man in the white jacket finds him there and agrees to release him if he can marry his daughter, to which Cherevik agrees. The story concludes with their marriage and the completion of the scheme, the "demon" being none other than the gypsy.

Setting

''SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars'' takes place on the high-fantasy world of Eo, inhabited by several races including humans, elves, dwarves and orcs. Eo was created by the binding of elementals by the god Aonir, and originally consisted of several continents, islands and oceans. However, decades ago, a powerful ritual known as the Convocation was invoked, creating a cataclysmic event that freed and the elementals, allowing them to shatter the world into a series of islands, held together by obelisks that channelled Aonir's power while being isolated from each other by an elemental sea that prevents travel by ship, leaving the remaining inhabitants to use a portal network devised by the mage Rohen Tahir.

The single-player campaign takes place amongst a group of these islands that formed the southern half of the continent of Fiara, and is inhabited by three powerful factions: the Realm - consisting of humans, dwarves and elves; the Clans - consisting of orcs, trolls and barbarians; and the Pact, consisting of dark elves, gargoyles, and shadows. The story itself takes place several years after the events of ''SpellForce: The Order of Dawn'', and focuses on the plight of the Soulcarrier - a member of the immortal people known as the Shaikan, who were created by the power-hungry alchemist Malacay through the blood of the dragon Ur, granting them immortality and the power to resurrect others into their group with their own blood, but at the risk of falling under Malacay's power whenever he desires it.

Synopsis

A civil war within the Pact comes to its conclusion when the dark elf sorcerer Sorvina kills the greatest warrior of the dark elves with an army of shadows. Nightsong, the warrior's daughter, flees her homeland in order to bring warning to the Realm of the approaching army, but is caught out by advance guards of dark elves while on the island of Iron Fields. While returning from a visit to a shrine, the Soulcarrier and their friends - members of the Shaikah that reside on the island - comes across her body after she dies in battle, and resurrect her with their blood in order. Made into a Shaikah herself, Nightsong warns the group of the impending danger, leading them to make a break for the Shaikan's fortress on the island, and to the great dragon Ur. Listening to her story, Ur advises the Soulcarrier to go with her to the Realm's capital on the island of Sevenskeep. Moments after they leave, Sorvina arrives with her army, and sets to work taking control of Iron Fields.

Upon arriving in Sevenskeep, the Soulcarrier finds its ruler unwilling to believe the danger, instead granting them a fiefdom for assisting the Realm with other problems. However, they soon change their mind when the Soulcarrier helps the dwarves and elves with their own problems in exchange for their assistance, and deal with a magician working for Sorvina that had inflicted Sevenskeep with a plague. With the Realm's aid, the Soulcarrier finds they must return home via a portal found within a massive fortress belonging to the Clan. During its siege, they witness the Pact kill Kor, an orc chieftain from the Clans who resented working with the shadows, leading the Soulcarrier to resurrect them for information before allowing them to return home. Eventually, the Realm arrive in Iron Fields and proceed to help in the fight against the Pact's army, but arrive too late to save the Shaikan from being killed by one of Sorvina's beasts, with Ur having been captured by the Pact.

Angered at what occurred in their absence, the Soulcarrier vows revenge on the Pact. However, when the Realm refuses to join them on their quest, they find themselves possessed by a second voice, which insults their allies and ends their alliance with them. When Nightsong questions what happened, the Soulcarrier reveals that they must have been chosen for possession by the spirit of the alchemist Malacay - a recurring curse amongst the Shaikan he created. Seeking new allies for their quest, the Soulcarrier ventures to the lands of the Clans, and enlists Kor's assistance in securing helping from his people.

After warnings from Forge and Banshee, the X-Men and Professor X investigate Muir Island, whose inhabitants have been taken over by the Shadow King. They are captured by the inhabitants. Professor X returns to his mansion, now in ruins after the Inferno storyline, to use Cerebro, only to find Stevie Hunter on the run from Colossus, also controlled by the Shadow King. Professor X battles Colossus and frees him from the Shadow King's control, but he is forced to strip away the Peter Nicholas persona he had been using since passing through the Siege Perilous. Xavier decides to call in his original students, now forming the team X-Factor.

On Muir Island, Wolverine separates himself from his party and is attacked and freed from control by Forge. Rogue appears, ready to attack, but she too is taken out by Forge. The three regroup, but are quickly attacked by Banshee, who is also quickly taken down and freed. Banshee explains that Shadow King has been using Polaris as a nexus between the physical world and the Astral Plane since the time Zaladane stripped Polaris of her magnetism powers. Using her new powers to absorb negative energy for superhuman strength, Shadow King plans on becoming all-powerful. They fear that to break that connection and defeat him, they may have to kill Polaris.

With X-Factor gathered, Professor X plans a strike on Muir Island using resources provided by Val Cooper. X-Factor lands on the island and quickly neutralizes its defenses. Back at the base, Professor X is attacked directly by the Shadow King, using his host body Jacob Reisz, who thinks he has control of all those present, including Cooper. She reveals herself to be a disguised Mystique and kills Reisz. Shadow King quickly shifts to a new host, Legion. As X-Factor and the freed X-Men reach Polaris, Legion sets off an explosion that destroys much of the island.

Professor X lands on the island himself, but finds Legion holding all of his students captive. Legion is attacked unexpectedly by Storm, freeing the X-Men. He retreats and unleashes the X-Men and Muir Island inhabitants to take down his enemies. Professor X decides they must attack the Shadow King on both the physical and astral planes to defeat him, so he sends half the team to break the nexus formed with Polaris and the other half to protect his body while he is on the Astral Plane. He begins his battle with the Shadow King, but now the villain has become too powerful to attack. Jean Grey, finding the damage inflicted to Xavier on the Astral Plane affecting his actual body, brings herself and the accompanying X-Men onto the Plane to assist. In the physical world, Forge defeats the still-controlled Psylocke and uses her psychic knife on Polaris to disrupt and sever the nexus. His power source destroyed, the Shadow King is ripped apart.

In the aftermath, Professor X fails to repair the mental damage to Legion's mind, leaving Legion brain-dead, but is comforted by X-Factor's decision to rejoin the X-Men. Val Cooper, returned from Shadow King's control, recruits Polaris, Guido Carosella and Jamie Madrox into a new government-sponsored team to replace Freedom Force.

Johnny Tremain is apprenticed to a silversmith, Mr. Lapham. One day, wealthy Jonathan Lyte asks Mr. Lapham to make a sugar basin to match his grand set of silverware. Lapham refuses because he believes he is too old for such jobs. Tremain believes he is skilled enough to do the job, and accepts. After trying several times but failing, he asks fellow silversmith, Paul Revere, for help designing a new handle. Revere tells him to make the handle deeper and larger. Eager to try the new design, Johnny breaks the Sabbath and accidentally burns his hand. The damage is so severe that he will never have full use of the hand again, and cannot continue as a silversmith apprentice. No one will hire him with only one usable hand. The Sons of Liberty recruit him as a messenger, to secretly inform members of the times and locations of meetings.

Johnny confides to Priscilla Lapham, Mr. Lapham's daughter, that he is secretly related to Mr. Lyte. He shows her a christening cup bearing the Lyte family crest as evidence. Desperate for money, he approaches Lyte and shows him the christening cup. Lyte assumes that Johnny stole the cup, and files charges against him. Josiah Quincy defends Johnny in court. Introducing Priscilla as a witness, Quincy proves Johnny's innocence.

Afterward, Tremain and the Sons of Liberty become active in several notable events leading to the American Revolution, including the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's Ride, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord. During the Boston Tea Party, Dr. Joseph Warren offers to restore Tremain's hand, allowing him to return to his profession.

Martian prisoner, teaching the Earthmen their language. 1898 illustration by GY Kauffman.

1898 illustration by GY Kauffman The book is set following the abortive Martian attack depicted in ''Fighters from Mars'', much more devastating and global than in H. G. Wells' ''The War of the Worlds'', though in both works the onslaught is thwarted when the aliens die from bacterial illness. Determining that the Martians will inevitably return, Earth's leaders, including U.S. President William McKinley, Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Emperor Mutsuhito, unite the world against the common threat and plan an attack on Mars. American inventor Thomas Edison leads a group of scientists studying derelict Martian equipment; they are able to develop an anti-gravity device powered by electric repulsion as well as a disintegration ray.

Using this new technology, the allies construct an armada of space ships for the attack. Edison takes some ships to the Moon on a test run; using the first known fictional depiction of space suits. There the explorers uncover evidence of an extinct civilization of giants. The armada heads on, discovering a solid gold asteroid being mined by the Martians. The humans fight two space battles against the Martians, suffering heavy casualties but ultimately winning thanks to the superiority of Edison's ray gun compared to the Martians' electric weapons. The humans take a captive, from whom they learn the Martian language.

The humans reach Mars, but in spite of their superior forces they have lost half their men to the Martians' overwhelming numbers. The Martians envelop the planet in a smoke screen, and the humans retreat to the moon Deimos. During a raid on Mars for supplies, the earth men find Aina, the last of a population of human slaves whose ancestors were captured from Kashmir in a Martian raid 9,000 years before. During this raid, the Martians also constructed the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphynx in Egypt, the latter of which is a statue of their leader. Aina advises Edison that meeting the Martians in battle would be fruitless, and that they should instead attack the dams that channel water from the polar ice. Since most of Mars' cities are under sea level, the flood spreads rapidly, killing most of the Martians and destroying their civilization. Edison and company force a peace with the surviving Martians, and return home to great celebration.

Rob Douglas has just been released from jail for the second time. Fearing a third conviction, which will result in a life sentence, he decides to go straight and leave the street life. His friend J.J. picks him up. However, the police show up and he learns that J.J. was driving a stolen car. When his friend J.J. is wounded from a shot to the buttocks and is taken into custody, Douglas learns he has been implicated in the shooting. He reaches out to his probation officer for help in proving his innocence, but is told that his best option is to simply turn himself in. J.J. is planning to have Douglas take the fall for the crime.

Douglas' mother informs him that a woman named Dahlia has information that will prove his innocence. Dahlia, who has been infatuated with Douglas ever since they were in high school, agrees to cooperate if he will have sex with her. Robert accepts her proposal. The police finds out that J.J. was behind the theft and also learn that J.J. was going to frame Douglas for it. As Douglas sneaks out of Dahlia's home, the police show up and send a dog after him. Douglas manages to get to his car and a high-speed chase ensues.

At his trial, the judge dismisses the felony charges. However, since Douglas failed to check in with his probation officer after leaving prison, he is sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating his parole. His family tells Douglas that they'll pick him up when he gets release this time. An epilogue states that Douglas was eventually released from prison early due to overcrowding.

At Appleyard College, a girls' private school near the town of Woodend in Victoria, Australia, students are getting ready on the morning of Valentine's Day, 1900. One student, an orphan named Sara, has a deep connection with her elder roommate Miranda. The school's austere headmistress, Mrs Appleyard, has arranged a picnic to a local geological formation known as Hanging Rock, accompanied by the peculiar mathematics teacher Miss Greta McCraw and the young French teacher Mademoiselle de Poitiers. Mrs Appleyard keeps Sara and jittery teacher Miss Lumley at the college.

Buggy operator Ben Hussey gets the group to Hanging Rock by mid-afternoon, where they picnic at its base. Mr Hussey notes his pocket watch has stopped at the stroke of 12, as has Miss McCraw's. With permission from Mlle. de Poitiers, Miranda and classmates Marion, Irma, and Edith decide to explore Hanging Rock. The group is soon after observed crossing a creek by a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, along with Albert, his friend and coachman for the Fitzhubert family.

After exploring the rock for a while, Miranda, Marion, and Irma remove their shoes and stockings. Near the summit, seemingly under the influence of an unseen force, the four collapse and fall asleep next to a monolith. Everyone at the picnic spot is apparently asleep as well, except for Miss McCraw who looks at a geometry textbook and up at the rock. The four awaken synchronously and, as if in a trance, all except Edith move up into a crevice. Witnessing this, Edith suddenly screams and flees down the rock in terror.

When the party returns to the college a few hours late and hysterical, Mrs Appleyard notes that Miss McCraw is absent. Mr. Hussey explains that they all woke up to Edith's screams and, along with the three students, Miss McCraw was nowhere to be found. Sara is especially devastated by the disappearance due to her connection with Miranda. A search party conducted by the local police finds no trace of them, although Edith reveals that she witnessed Miss McCraw climbing the rock in only undergarments, as well as an odd red cloud. Michael Fitzhubert is questioned and informs that he briefly saw the schoolgirls, but can provide no clues as to their whereabouts.

Michael becomes obsessed with the mystery, deciding to conduct his own search of Hanging Rock along with Albert. After finding nothing, Michael decides to remain overnight and begins searching again the next day. He too eventually collapses, hearing bits of conversation from the picnic and having a vision of the girls going into the crevice, up to which he drags himself. Albert returns, finding Michael nearly catatonic. He gets help and Michael is carried down to a carriage. As he departs, Michael passes Albert a fragment of lace he had clenched in his hand. Albert again ascends Hanging Rock and discovers Irma unconscious but somehow alive.

Mrs Appleyard advises Miss Lumley that the mystery is devastating the school's reputation, bringing to her attention that several parents have withdrawn their children. Unrest spreads among locals about the mystery and school. At the Fitzhubert home, where Irma is treated for dehydration, a medical examination strangely shows only minor injuries. A servant girl notes that Irma's corset is missing. Irma tells the police and Mlle. de Poitiers that she has no memory of what happened.

Mrs Appleyard notifies Sara that her presence at the college is endangered, as her guardian has not been keeping up with payments or communication. Increasingly despondent due to this and her loss of Miranda, Sara reveals to a maid that she was in an orphanage with her brother before being able to come to the college through her guardian, describing how she was abused by the matron. She also tells Mlle. de Poitiers that Miranda knew she would vanish forever.

During an exercise class, Irma arrives to bid farewell to her classmates, who violently swarm her, demanding her to reveal what happened on the rock and where the missing girls are. As everyone exits crying, Mlle. de Poitiers finds Sara feeble and strapped to a posture correction board. Afterward, Miss Lumley gives notice to a drunken Mrs Appleyard that she is resigning. Mrs Appleyard goes to Sara's room that night and informs her that, as her guardian has still not paid her tuition, she will be returned to the orphanage, then weeps in her office while Sara leaves her room.

The next day, Albert reveals to Michael that he had a dream in which his lost sister, revealed to be Sara, visited him. Meanwhile, Mrs Appleyard claims that Sara's guardian came to pick her up early that morning. The students then depart for their holiday, and at dinner with Mlle. de Poitiers, an unhinged Mrs Appleyard spitefully rages about Miss McCraw and Hanging Rock. In the morning, Sara's body is found by the school gardener in a small greenhouse, apparently having plummeted into it from the school's rooftop. He goes into Mrs Appleyard's office to inform her but is rendered nearly speechless as she is in full mourning dress with her possessions packed, unresponsively staring.

During a flashback to the picnic, a police sergeant states in a voiceover that Mrs Appleyard's body was later found at the base of Hanging Rock, apparently having fallen, and that the search for Miranda, Marion, and Miss McCraw continued for several years without success, their disappearance remaining a mystery.

U.S. Senator William Tadlock (Kirk Douglas) is leaving his home in Missouri in 1843, heading west on the Oregon Trail by wagon train. His son and slave come along, with Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum) as a hired guide. Joining them on the expedition are farmer Lije Evans (Richard Widmark), his wife Rebecca (Lola Albright), and 16-year-old son Brownie (Michael McGreevey). Among others there are also the newlyweds Johnnie (Michael Witney) and Amanda Mack (Katherine Justice), plus the Fairman and McBee families.

Shy young wife Amanda isn't satisfying his needs, so Johnnie gets drunk and strays with young Mercy McBee (Sally Field). He also shoots at what he drunkenly thinks is a wolf, and ends up killing a Sioux chief's son. Tadlock knows that no other form of justice will do for the Indians if the wagon train is being pursued by them out of vengeance, so he hangs Johnnie, for the safety of the traveling party, but to their outrage. On the trail, it turns out Mercy is now pregnant as well, and Brownie proposes marriage to her.

Tadlock's son is killed in a stampede, causing the senator to be so distraught that he becomes harsh and despotic towards his charges. The last straw comes when Tadlock destroys Rebecca Evans' antique clock after Lije Evans refuses to abandon it. A fight ensues when Tadlock is attacked by Evans, for which Tadlock retaliates by trying to shoot Evans, only for Summers to stop him. The others form a lynch mob and attempt to hang Tadlock, but Evans talks them out of it and now takes charge of the trek.

Nearly to the end, the trek reaches a steep ravine, which offers the only shortcut to their destination. Rebecca Evans shows the others Tadlock's grand plan, and Evans relinquishes command back to Tadlock. The settlers lower their possessions, livestock, and each other down the steep escarpment to reach the wagon road to the Willamette Valley. Emotionally destroyed by the loss of Johnnie, Amanda Mack cuts the rope Tadlock is descending on, causing the senator to plunge to his death. Amanda runs off into the desert, but the others, after commemorating Tadlock's efforts, press on to Oregon. Summers stays behind, departing to parts unknown.

The novel opens when Kelric Valdoria crash lands on the planet Coba. An ancient culture with similarities to the Raylicans, Coba is one of the many isolated and forgotten planets of the former Ruby Empire. Kelric makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape and eventually ends up in jail. It is there he spends his time (particularly while in isolation) learning the dice game Quis.

Eventually, Kelric is released and joins one of the "estates" - small matriarchical provinces or city-states that comprise the population of Coba. These estates have special dedicated communes that exclusively play Quis, called Calanya. Kelric becomes a member of one of these communes, known as the "Calani". The society of Coba has, for centuries, replaced war and aggression with competition in Quis. The Quis also double as an information network, with players revealing information about themselves and their estate while at the same time learn about others. Finally, as an information-exchange network, Quis allows technology to improve on Coba at an astounding rate.

The strength of a Calani is based on two properties: a player's skill, and the number of different estates they have worked for. Because of his pleasing appearance and his skill in Quis, Kelric is coveted by the queens (known as "Managers") of the different estates. Kelric's membership in the estates proceeds as follows: Dahl, Haka, Bahvla, Miesa, Varz, and finally Karn. Renamed "Sevtar", Kelric has two children with two of his wives (one of which is born Rhon) during his time in the different estates.

Each time Kelric is traded, his skill and worth increase, in the end reaching legendary status. In the final trade to Karn, Ixpar Karn trades rule of the planet (in addition to being Karn Manager, Ixpar also held the title of "Minister" of Coba) for Kelric. This eventually ignites actual violence, allowing Kelric to escape.

The end of this novel is where Ascendant Sun begins.

Quis

'''Quis''' refers to a dice game learned by Kelric on the planet Coba.

This dice strategy game can be played with a physical set of dice that are made from hand-crafted jewels; or it can be played mentally. It originates on a planet called Coba, a former colony of the Ruby Empire that became isolated during the empire's collapses and remains so even during the time of the novels. All members of Coban society learn to play Quis, but only a few excel at it.

The Quis dice can be used for a variety of purposes, including as a game, to tell stories, to exchange information, and even to gamble. But its most important use is its influence on politics, as the dice are used to compete politically, and also can convey politically important information.

There are competing city-states that have isolated top Quis players, who study the art of playing Quis as their full-time occupation.

A naked man (Bruno Slagmulder) wakes up in a luxury loft, which is a residential building in an unidentified European city, after a particularly wild New Year's Eve party of the year 2000. He finds a naked woman (Denise Aron-Schropfer) in his bed, and obviously he does not recognize or remember her. He walks naked through the apartment and discovers a pair of partygoers – two young boys, identical twins (Lionel Le Guevellou and Olivier Le Guevellou), in a sleeping bag, hugging each other. He looks out the window and recognizes a man (Flavien Coupeau) and woman (Lucia Sanchez) making love in the apartment across the street, while the woman who was sleeping beside him wakes up and takes a bath. While he looks at what is happening across the street, he falls off the table he was sitting on, and lands on the floor, breaking a glass. This noise wakes up the twins. He goes into the kitchen to throw the pieces of broken glass away, and discovers ants underneath the garbage can. He goes into the bathroom and tells the women in the bath about the plague of ants in the kitchen.

Governor Bronson, who raised Bob Wayne from childhood after the death of his parents, is killed at the hands of a world-domination-seeking mad scientist called Doctor Satan. Fearing his death might be at hand, as it has been for everyone else who had opposed the Doctor, the Governor first confides in Wayne with a secret about his past. Bob's father was really an outlaw in the Old West, who fought injustice while wearing a chainmail cowl and leaving small coiled copper snakes as his calling card.

Following his guardian's death, Wayne decides to adopt his father's Copperhead persona and cowl. Doctor Satan, meanwhile, requires only a remote control device invented by Professor Scott to complete his army of killer robots and gain all the power and riches he desires.

The Copperhead battles Doctor Satan, rescuing the Professor and others and preventing the Doctor from completing his plot.

The Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack are on another world, in the year 2775 (Rose's future), where the chips are not quite the same. There are poster-like TV screens everywhere, but the Doctor says the technology is twenty-seventh century, or earlier. The city is growing up, instead of out, while 90% of the planet is jungle.

The three of them rent a room for the night, and are given three tablets 'to stop you dreaming.' As Rose flips through the channels of the obligatory TV, all she finds are news and documentaries. 'All factual programmes. There's no escapism. No imagination. Nothing that tells a story.' 'No lies.' 'No fiction.' ... 'No wonder this world is stagnated.'

The Doctor sees an arrest of 'fiction geeks' in progress on the news and goes to see what he can find out. He tells Officer Waller that he is an inspector with the government, and shows her his psychic paper as proof. She tells him that the planet has no government, and he quickly changes his story to being a researcher for one of the news channels and shows her the psychic paper again.

Waller gets a call that Hal Gryden is broadcasting with an approximate location, and the Doctor rides along. As they drive, she explains that on the last call, the police were chasing fantasists who were exchanging comic books. At the last moment, the broadcast signal was lost.

Back in the hotel room, Rose hears footsteps in the hall. She goes out to look, and hears a noise come from the cleaner's store cupboard. She opens the door to find a skinny guy about her age, who tries to hide the papers he is holding. He tells her the cops are after him because of the fiction. She says she doesn't care, and takes him back to their room. He says his name is Domnic.

In the room, Domnic starts messing with the TV tuning, while Rose looks at the papers he brought. Part of it is a cartoon with a woman who is being chased by zombies. He tells them that he is looking for Static, an unlicensed TV station run by Hal Gryden. Rose fills in Jack about fiction being against the law, and Domnic tells them that people are sent to a Home for the Cognitively Disconnected, with the main one being called the Big White House.

Suddenly Domnic gets scared and thinks that Rose and Jack are actually the police and runs for the door. When Rose stops him, he jumps out the window and manages to catch the fire-escape cage and get away safely.

The radio tells Waller of another disturbance, where a man is threatening a group of bankers. The Doctor starts talking to him, then Waller takes over and he is arrested and taken to the Big White House.

Jack leaves Rose sleeping in the hotel room to see what he can find out about Hal Gryden. He meets a tramp, and they go to a nearby pub. Jack decides the best way to find Gryden is to go out and tell stories, so Gryden will come to him. In the first bar, no one wants to listen, and in the second, the bartender throws them out. But most of the people in the third are interested, even though he is heckled by others accusing him of spreading fiction.

Suddenly, the tramp tells Jack that they have to move on. At other pubs, they are starting to be recognized on sight. At the last one, they stay just a bit too long, and are almost caught by the police. They manage to escape and find a hiding place, and the tramp tells Jack that he's Hal Gryden.

Rose wakes to hear the end of an editorial broadcast by Static TV, and that a story about zombies is promised for the afternoon. The Doctor is still not back, so she leaves him a note. She and Jack decide that Domnic can be useful to them, so she is going to look for him. As she is headed out the door, she thinks maybe she heard a footstep behind her, and maybe she has seen a zombie, but decides it must be a leftover dream.

From the research they'd done online the night before, finding his flat is easy, but no one answers Rose's knock. She is trudging back to the hotel room when he leaps out at her from behind a table in a cafe. He says that the police are watching his flat, and they start walking. Rose thinks she sees another zombie, and they both start running, but Domnic says he thinks he has seen a policewoman.

Rose and Domnic find their way into a builder's yard. Rose thinks at first that they should go into the building, but then sees a glimpse of a zombie in a window, and then the gate closes loudly. Suddenly they are surrounded by zombies.

The Doctor is at the Big White House with Officer Waller and meets the duty nurse Cal Tyko. They follow him on his rounds and see some of the patients. He won't allow them to view the operating theatres. The man who was arrested earlier is brought in, put in a padded cell, and given an injection to shut down the right hemisphere of his brain. Tyko says 'We've good reason to be afraid of the big bad wolf.' The Doctor heads back to the hotel by himself and hopes that neither Jack nor Rose have done anything unwise while he has been gone.

Jack waits in hiding for a long time for Hal Gryden to return; he finally does, and they head off toward one of his secret studios. They enter an old warehouse building, and find the basement is full of boxes of toys. As they make their way upstairs, the police find them. They reach the floor where the studio should be, find nothing, and Jack realizes that the man is just a tramp, and not really Gryden. They are both arrested and taken to the Big White House.

Domnic tries to tell Rose that there is nothing there, no zombies, but she doesn't believe him. Suddenly Rose sees the Doctor, and starts up the metal stairs outside the building, dragging Domnic with her. Domnic doesn't see the Doctor, and believes that Rose is 'fantasy-crazy' when she explains about him and the TARDIS. She uses her superphone to call her mum, who is upset with her for being in Cardiff with Mickey and not coming home for a visit. After the call ends, Rose realizes the zombies aren't real, and decides to head back to the hotel.

At the hotel, the note that Rose left is still there, untouched. Domnic starts flipping through the TV channels, and they hear many mentions of Hal Gryden. Domnic says this has never happened before - everyone knows who he is, but he's never been officially named anywhere. Rose leaves the room, and Domnic becomes absorbed in the Static channel. The Doctor interrupts him to ask where Rose and Jack are, and Domnic doesn't know, but they find a note from Rose to him saying that she had gone with the Doctor.

At the Big White House, Jack decides to act the model inmate. Nurse Tyko is in charge of Jack's admission, but all of the reception cells are full. Jack tells him that the irregular black shape resembling a spaceship is a Rorschach inkblot test, and that the next is also. He is deemed non-violent and sent to Common Room B until he can be formally admitted.

When Jack is brought up to an office and interviewed, he gives factual responses. Tyko determines that Jack is not 'fantasy crazy' but that his storytelling was committed with premeditated malicious intent. This means that he cannot be helped through normal methods, and they are going to perform immediate surgery to stop him from doing it again.

Rose is in a taxi, stuck in traffic, on her way to the Big White House. The Doctor is with her, but other people don't seem to acknowledge him, the psychic paper isn't working, and the power pack of the sonic screwdriver is in need of charging. They attempt to climb the wall, but are unsuccessful, so they go in the front gate, pretending that the Doctor is a new patient. Once inside the walls, they sneak into a side wing. They are seen, and orderlies take off after both of them, capturing Rose, with the Doctor telling her that he's invisible.

The Doctor goes to find Rose, and asks Domnic if he wants to come. They first go to the TARDIS, through the console room, down some corridors and eventually end up in a small round room. He examines Domnic, and finds that there are microorganisms in this world that weren't previously detected.

Jack is secured to a cold metal trolley and taken down to the ground floor. Just as the surgeon is about to begin operating, there is a shriek of alarm from outside the room, the orderlies leave, and Jack manages to get free and escape. He takes several key cards and goes back the way he'd come. He sees them taking Rose to a room, and follows.

Jack uses a card to enter her room, but Rose thinks Jack is imaginary. She believes he is real when he gives the full title of the Jagrafess. The drugs they gave her are wearing off, so the two of them take the key cards and start letting the patients out.

There is rioting all over the city. Officer Waller arrives at the Big White House and finds Captain Jack in charge inside. He flusters her, as his 'demands' aren't typical. Then the Doctor is there, and asks to talk to him, go into the building and try to help.

Once the Doctor gets inside, Jack fills him in on what's happening. Rose is in a room, still unsure of herself. The Doctor tells her about the microorganisms, how they feed off electrical activity, and seem to just love the neuroelectro-chemical signals put out by the right side of adult human brains. They create a feedback loop, which passes to the left side and causes a person to become 'fantasy-crazy.' He tells her that now that she understands what is happening, she should be able to fight off the effect.

The Doctor hacks into an unused government emergency server, and tells Domnic to find a camera. He is planning to cut into all the channels at once and pretend to be Hal Gryden. The people will then be using the left side of their brains to remember a real person, and things should calm down. The only problem is that the police will storm the building as soon as they see what's happening. Jack says they can give him ten minutes.

The Doctor starts his broadcast, and the police head for the building. All of the patients who are able are placed on various floors to keep the police away from the Doctor for as long as possible. He is able to speak for about eight minutes before being arrested with everyone else.

The Doctor's speech calms things down on the streets. He had given nurse Tyko the proof of the microorganisms, and the scientists on the planet go to work to find a way to prevent them from causing problems. They find one a fortnight later. Jack and Rose are released from the Big White House almost immediately, and 'Hal Gryden' disappears one night before they can decide what to do with him. The colonists discover that the planet’s name is in fact Arkannis Major, which doesn't really mean much of anything. Fantasy and fiction become more commonplace as people learn to tell the difference. Eventually a new science-fiction programme appears on the colony’s new media networks — the adventures of a mysterious traveller in time and space, known only as Hal Gryden.

After an unsuccessful attempt to seduce Donna Anna (soprano Edda Moser), Don Giovanni (baritone Ruggero Raimondi) kills her father ''Il Commendatore'' (bass John Macurdy). The next morning, Giovanni meets Donna Elvira (soprano Kiri Te Kanawa), a woman he previously seduced and abandoned. Later, Giovanni happens upon the preparations for a peasant wedding and tries to seduce the bride-to-be Zerlina (mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza), but his ambition is frustrated by Donna Elvira.

Donna Anna soon realizes that Giovanni killed her father, and she pursues the seducer along with her fiance Don Ottavio (tenor Kenneth Riegel). Ever ready to attempt a seduction, Giovanni woos Elvira's maid. As part of his plans, he switches clothes with his servant Leporello (bass-baritone José van Dam), who rapidly finds himself in trouble with people who mistake him for his master. Leporello flees and eventually meets Giovanni at the cemetery where ''Il Commendatore'' is buried. They jokingly invite the statue at his grave to dinner. While they are dining, the supernaturally animated statue arrives, and the horrified Giovanni is drawn into an open-pit fire.

John Finley Horton (James Whitmore) is a liberal white journalist who darkens his face and hands (and to some degree his body) using various means, sufficiently to pass for a black man. He travels for several weeks in the Deep South in order to report from the other side of the color line in the segregated society. He spends time in places from New Orleans to Atlanta, and encounters racism from both white and black people.

Following the basic plot of the novel, ''Watership Down'' follows the lives of a group of rabbits as they leave their endangered warren in search of a safe new home. They travel across the English countryside, braving perilous danger, until they find a hill called Watership Down, where they begin a new warren. However, they are endangered by another warren, Efrafa, which is led by the authoritarian General Woundwort, and they are soon forced to defend their home and lives.

Although the series began with elements taken from the original novel, later episodes of the first series, as well as most of the second and third were almost entirely new content, with many episodes focusing solely on new characters and situations.

In addition, the third series featured a new opening sequence and somewhat altered style of animation, along with many of the original voice actors leaving, only leaving a handful of the original cast to remain. The programme became noticeably darker in tone, adding elements of mysticism and magic, and focusing on an evil new warren called Darkhaven.

Although the series was praised by younger audiences at the time of the series' air, fans of both the novel and the movie were more mixed about the series due to drastic changes from the novel (like Pipkin going from a grownup rabbit to a young rabbit and Blackberry changing from a buck to a doe) and its more child-friendly tone as compared to some of the violence of the movie.

The game begins with the Trade Federation's blockade of the planet Naboo. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan are assigned by the Jedi Council as part of a mission to officiate the dispute and reach a settlement with the Federation leaders. When they reach the Federation's ship on Naboo, however, they find out that the Federation is not interested in negotiations and is secretly allied with the leader of the Sith, the Jedi Order's enemies; together, they plan to invade Naboo and take control of the galaxy by killing all Jedi. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are attacked by Federation droids, but manage to escape. They head to Theed, the capital of Naboo, to warn the unprepared inhabitants about the imminent attack.

During their journey to the city, the two Jedi cross Naboo's swamps and are assaulted by invading troops sent by the Federation. After delivering the warning, they travel to the planet Coruscant to talk with the Jedi Council. They are attacked by more Federation troops after arriving, but the two Jedi are able to defeat them. Jedi Grandmaster Yoda instructs Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to return to Naboo and help Queen Amidala and her people defeat the Federation. Upon reaching Theed, the Jedi set out to liberate the city. To get around the Federation's droids, they manage to infiltrate the city by going through a secret entrance to the ancient catacombs, but are discovered and forced to battle the droids on their way through.

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discover that Amidala has been captured by the Federation and will soon have to sign a treaty handing control to them. Before heading to the Queen's palace to initiate an attack, they free captured citizens on the streets of Theed. The Jedi infiltrate the palace and manage to free the Queen, ruining the Federation's plans. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan's young friend Anakin Skywalker commandeers a vacant starfighter and is able to destroy the Federation droid control ship in space, causing the entire droid army to deactivate. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, meanwhile, encounter the Sith apprentice Darth Maul. Qui-Gon is mortally wounded in the battle, but Obi-Wan manages to kill Maul in retaliation. As a result, Obi-Wan's quest to become a Jedi Knight is completed.

A twelve-year-old boy James (Trevor Morgan) lives with his father Nathan (Ray Liotta) and stepmother Mary (Catherine McCormack). He lost his mother in a car accident two years earlier. The memories of the accident still haunt him and make him freeze with panic. He has not been able to talk about his feelings about the accident and the death of his mother because his father is always away from home and he does not want to talk to his stepmother.

One day playing an imaginary game behind the house of Maddy Bennet (Vanessa Redgrave), he breaks her fence. Maddy demands that he fix it. Soon the two become good friends. Maddy also lost her son Bobby in 1974 in the Vietnam War. She tells her experiences of losing her son to James. She forces James to talk about his mother and face his fears. She tells him that her son Bobby talks to her.

James's parents do not like the stories Maddy tells James and forbid him from seeing her. James becomes distraught at the "loss" of his friend. Meanwhile, Maddy has a heart attack, and James's parents permit him to nurse her back to health. Soon after her recovery, though, she dies. James becomes reconciled with his father, who now talks to him more, and with his stepmother.

Impoverished Roman Prince Amerigo is engaged to American socialite Maggie Verver. Maggie has a very close relationship with her millionaire father Adam, a widowed tycoon living in England who plans a museum in the United States to house his collection of art and antiquities.

Unbeknownst to his fiancée and prior to their engagement, Amerigo had a brief, passionate affair with Maggie's friend Charlotte. Both were penniless, and Amerigo breaks off their affair due to his engagement. Charlotte is still in love with him when she visits mutual friend Fanny Assingham in London. Maggie invites her to the wedding, and at Maggie's request, Amerigo takes Charlotte to an antiques shop to look for a wedding gift. The proprietor Jarvis shows them a bowl, carved from a single piece of rock crystal, which he asserts is flawless. Amerigo notices a crack. Charlotte claims not to see the crack, only the bowl's beauty. She is unsure whether to buy the bowl so Jarvis reserves it pending her decision.

Maggie and Amerigo marry and have a son. Adam and Charlotte also marry, much to Maggie's delight. Three years pass and the two couples' lives are closely interwoven. Maggie and Adam's closeness alienates their spouses. Fanny correctly suspects that Amerigo and Charlotte have rekindled their affair. Maggie also becomes suspicious and confides in Fanny, but Fanny, wanting to protect Maggie's feelings, tries to discourage such thoughts. Adam observes close interactions between Charlotte and Amerigo but stays silent, not wanting Maggie to be hurt.

Maggie looks for a birthday gift for her father in Jarvis's shop, and chooses the bowl Jarvis had set aside for Charlotte years ago. Jarvis delivers it to her home. While there, he recognizes photographs of Amerigo and Charlotte and innocently reveals they were the couple who originally considered purchasing the bowl before the wedding. Maggie realizes that the two were not meeting for the first time, as she had always assumed, and vents her feelings to Fanny. Fanny breaks the glass bowl, saying it is the only proof of Amerigo and Charlotte being together, and she can pretend nothing happened. Maggie confronts Amerigo, who confesses. Maggie says the bowl represents their marriage, it appeared beautiful and perfect but was flawed. Amerigo begs Maggie not tell her father and not to leave. Maggie agrees not to tell her father for fear of hurting him, but is unsure how she feels about her husband.

Adam is distant, and suggests to Charlotte that they return to the United States for the opening of his museum. She is strongly opposed. Tension grows when Amerigo and Maggie arrive with the Assinghams. Amerigo is distant to Charlotte, who worries that Adam and Maggie know of the affair. Maggie and Adam agree to move apart from each other to protect their families. Maggie and Amerigo prepare for a permanent move to Italy, while Adam puts Charlotte in charge of packing the artifacts in preparation for their move to America. Charlotte begs Amerigo to run away with her but he rejects the idea and expresses guilt at being unfaithful and lying to his wife. Charlotte reconciles to being with Adam, and the film ends with the couple arriving to fanfare in an American city.

The anime starts with Wendy having a dream about Peter Pan rescuing her and having a sword fight with Captain Hook. Wendy and her two brothers, later on in the episode, go to Never Neverland and Wendy becomes the 'mother' of the Lost boys. Throughout the series, a romance blooms between Peter and Wendy, as they go on fights with pirates.

The last half of the series deviates from the original story line, in a total of three camps (Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Sinistra). Two new characters (Sinistra and Luna) become an important part of the last episodes.

Different from Disney studios, the everyday wear of Peter Pan is brown in this work.

David (Campbell Scott) and Dana Hurst (Hope Davis) are dentists who are married with three daughters and share a dental practice in Westchester County, New York. Dana is in the chorus of a community opera production, and when David goes backstage to give her a good luck charm, he sees her in the arms of another man. As he contemplates how to handle this, he begins having imaginary conversations with a difficult former patient (Denis Leary). When the whole family gets the flu, everything is brought to a head.

Chief Shea keeps dreaming about an accident that put one of his firefighters, Eddie McCarthy, in the burn ward. Lt. Michael Brooks is struggling with his divorce and Andre's girlfriend leaves him because she fears losing him every time he leaves to fight a fire. The firehouse is consolidated with the EMS unit and must remove their barbecue to make room for the ambulance as well as allow EMS rescue worker Kate Wilkinson to sleep in their firehouse. Chief Frank Shea and many of the other firefighters are not pleased about the situation and are unsociable.

They respond to a building fire where Lt. Brooks is shot by a sniper who has previously attacked them on several occasions. Frustrated by the lack of progress with the investigation, Luvullo gets into a fistfight with one of the police officers called to investigate. Kate accompanies Lt. Brooks to the hospital in her ambulance, where a woman visits him. Once discharged, Brooks beings drinking again at the bar where his fellow firefighter Sy holds a second job. Another patron recommends wearing body armor to him.

Kate is visited by her husband Nick, who finds her in tears after being cursed at by one of the firefighters. He suggests quitting and having children but she insists that she is happy with her job. Luvullo takes Andre to a dance club to find a new girlfriend and they spot a blonde supermodel there. When she stops dancing with a man named Ronald and attempts to walk away, Ronald grabs her arm and they begin to argue as the paparazzi photograph the incident. O'Connell confronts Ronald and punches him, which is also photographed. Nick sees Andre on the street and threatens to come to the firehouse and beat up the firefighters with his friends when he is off duty. Chief Shea visits Eddie, who is visibly depressed. Eddie's wife Bridget tells Chief Shea that Eddie told her he wants to die. The firefighters are called to cut open a payphone to help a woman whose fingers are stuck in the coin return and leave behind Kate, who washes the Dalmatian. The photograph of Luvullo punching Ronald is published in the newspaper but when Chief Shea wants to talk about it Luvullo and Andre are called to deal with a stopped elevator. Lt. Brooks comes to the firehouse but Chief Shea will not let him return while he is still on medical leave. Reporter Patty Lyons wants to write a story about Brooks returning to work early and attempts to convince Chief Shea to let him return. The other truck is called to deal with a water leak, where they trace the cause to a dead man in a bathtub. Brooks visits his ex-wife and gives her the bullet because it was inside him.

They are called to a fire in a residential high-rise and must clear out the tenants. One resident becomes so hot that he attempts to jump out the window so Luvullo rappels down to the window from a higher floor to rescue the screaming man, who is upset by the discomfort of the rescue and ungratefully slaps Luvullo. Lt. Brooks is asked to pose for a photo op with the Commissioner but during it he hears a sound like a gunshot and flees in fear, finding five-year-old Danny in a nearby alley. Danny admits he started the fire playing at home alone while his parents were drinking at a local bar. After returning, Kate impatiently enters the showers before the men are finished, prompting them to leave. Danny's parents return to the bar and leave Danny with an aunt but he runs away to the firehouse. Chief Shea tries to convince Brooks not to get personally involved. The supermodel invites Luvullo to a party during a work shift. Luvullo says he will go but Andre convinces him to stay at work. Sy tells Brooks that child welfare is coming for Danny and suggests that he should have tried to have another child after his ex-wife had a miscarriage. Brooks buys a gun from Diebold and attempts to hunt the sniper but is shot through the heart. The cops lift a fingerprint from the scene and bring Sy with them to take in the suspect. The film ends with a funeral procession through the streets of the city with Michael's coffin on top of a firetruck with a police escort.

Set in the year 1929 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Edgar Faldo is a young professor who decides to assemble a group of friends at his family mansion to discuss the topic of sex and its advantages. Edgar hires two young women to work as stenographers to record the daily debates that his friends discuss to scientifically study sex. The two women, the sexually active Zoe and the frigid-plain Alice, have mixed feelings being around as Edgar brings over three of his friends, who include oddball English artist Sevy, German writer and novelist Monty, and fellow professor Peter. Edgar's father, Mr. Faldo, shows up with his new trophy wife, Sasha, to oversee the events as others who are Lorenz, Oscar, Sevy's wife Janet, and Edgar's disapproving French girlfriend, Chloe, all turn up during different meeting sessions to talk and interact with everyone on the taboos spoken for the "experiment" as Edgar puts it.

Seymour Moskowitz is an eccentric and uncouth parking attendant who has just moved from New York to Los Angeles. Minnie Moore is a museum curator in an abusive relationship with a married man named Jim. Following their fight, she becomes disillusioned with love and meaningful relationships. Minnie talks with a friend about getting older and her chances of finding the right man for her.

The next day, Minnie is set up on a blind date with a bitter and loudmouthed widower, Zelmo. The date goes badly and ends with Zelmo chasing her out of the restaurant. Seymour, working the parking lot, witnesses the commotion and gets into a physical altercation with Zelmo. Seymour wins the fight, bloodying Zelmo's face, who drives away crying and strands Minnie. Seymour offers to give her a ride, which she refuses, but he pursues her in his truck and forces her inside. She demands he drop her off at her workplace, the LA County Museum, which he does. Jim is waiting inside with his son and breaks off the relationship, revealing that his wife attempted suicide. Minnie is infuriated and hurt and slaps Jim.

Seymour shows up at Minnie's house to confront her about costing him his job at the parking lot. He takes her to a bar for a drink, then proclaims his love for her at a hot dog stand and berates her for taking herself too seriously when she doesn't return his affections. After dropping Minnie off, he brings a lady friend back to his apartment who stays overnight. Seymour calls Minnie to see her again and they go to an ice cream parlor, then to a country western bar. In the parking lot, they dance to the music and kiss. When Minnie fails to introduce Seymour to her wealthy friends on the way into the bar, he angrily drives away and strands her just as Zelmo did. The wealthy male friend drives her home, where Seymour is waiting. The men fight, injuring Minnie in the process.

Seymour brings Minnie inside to recover, where she admits that she doesn't see a future with Seymour. Insisting that they're meant for each other, he threatens to kill himself and then cuts his long moustache in a frenzy. She finally agrees to marry him and tells her mother about the news. Minnie and Seymour go to dinner with their mothers, who are hesitant and dubious about the prospects of their union. Seymour's mother calls him a "bum" and doesn't see the point of them marrying if there isn't a baby on the way, also telling Minnie that she could do much better than her son. Minnie's mother is overwhelmed and nearly speechless at the abruptness of the news and Seymour's appearance and personality.

Minnie and Seymour marry, laughing as the minister forgets his lines and fumbles for his notes. The film ends with a flash forward to a sunny backyard birthday party, possibly for their own child.

A man and woman posing as paramedics assists a man in an overturned car on a freeway. As an ambulance approaches, the woman panics, taping the man's mouth shut and pulling him from the car before speeding away. Meanwhile, single mother Senga Wilson and her 15-year-old daughter Natasha 'Nat' are on a six-hour overnight drive home, following a visit to Marek, Nat's father, for her birthday. En route, they pass by the crash, and Senga notices a strange man and woman photographing the scene; as Senga watches them, the man turns his camera and photographs her.

Unnerved and exhausted, Senga nearly falls asleep while driving, and decides to stop at a truck stop diner. Outside, Nat meets a young female backpacker and offers her a ride. Senga is visibly disturbed by the backpacker and the strange ambient CD she plays in the car. They drop her at a picnic area and when they return seconds later to return the CD she left behind, she seems to have disappeared. Shortly after, Nat convinces her mother to return to the diner, so that she can get her birthday present from her father. Already stressed from the long drive, Senga is furious when she discovers that Marek has bought Nat tickets to a concert that she has refused to allow her to attend. After a heated argument, Nat gets into an RV with the backpacker and a strange couple.

Senga solicits the assistance of a police officer, but when she seems unhelpful, goes after the RV herself, tailing the officer who had just left the diner. The police officer meets up with the inhabitants of the RV. Senga breaks into their RV and discovers a number of strange things, including thermoses full of blood and videos of young girls talking about their past lives. She escapes the RV before anyone returns, but once back on the road, The Backpacker reveals herself to be hiding in the backseat. She strangles Senga, causing her to crash.

In the back of an oil tanker, Nat parties with the Backpacker and a young man, who tell her about their group and their enigmatic leader. Senga is woken by the recovery man, a disturbed drifter who cruises highways in his tow truck, who insists that Senga come with him. In his car, she finds a picture of a girl she saw in a video in the RV. The recovery man informs Senga that the girl is Christine, his dead sister. Senga is taken to a police station, where she reports Nat's disappearance. The police are less than helpful, and, in frustration, she asks them to call Marek. The man who answers Marek's phone tells the police that Senga is on medication, and that Nat has been with him all weekend.

Back at the truck stop, Senga sees the man and woman she had seen earlier photographing the car accident. As her paranoia mounts, she suspects them to be involved with Nat's disappearance, and attacks the woman, resulting in her being kicked out of the diner. While hiding in a hallway, she encounters the woman with two male cult members, and flees outside. As they leave the truck stop, the recovery man follows them in his truck; Senga follows behind, ending up at an abandoned research facility.

While Nat meets the Father, the recovery man detonates a bomb, killing several of the cult members. Before the Father can initiate Nat, Senga attacks him. Mother and daughter flee in different directions, with Senga being pursued by the backpacker and Nat being placated by the Father, who uses a loudspeaker to talk to her. During the fight, the Father reveals that Senga wanted to have an abortion when she discovered she was pregnant with Nat. The shock of this revelation leaves Senga in a near catatonic state.

The recovery man pulls her out of her stupor by showing her Marek's body. Senga uses this information to try to demonstrate to Nat how evil her new friends are. While mother and daughter try to escape, the recovery man and the Father wrestle; when the Father bites the recovery man's tongue and spits it out, Senga detonates his last bomb, killing them both. Senga and Nat leave, continuing their drive home in daylight. When they stop at a gas station, they return to their car to find a razor blade — the Father's calling card — attached to the rear view mirror.

The series begins with a slightly disturbed Michelle Koo (Myolie Wu) travelling back to home on a flight. She was accompanied by her friend Donna. Donna told her to relax and gave her some wine to drink. When Donna looked back at the other passengers she identified Nick Yau. While noticing him, she became very excited and went over talking with him a lot, even asked him what could she wear. Meanwhile, Michelle got drunk but still wanted some more. She got some more and went over to where Donna and Nick Yau were chatting. Drunk Michelle spilt her wine over some cloth on Nick Yau's lap. Nick's cloth was very special to him because he was going to make a dress for Elaine, his girlfriend. When Michelle finally got home she faced her furious father who is very disappointed about her. In the course of time, Michelle became friends with FeiFei (Rain Li), and Ella (Sharon Chan).

Somehow, they all ended up working in Nee, a famous clothing brand. Nee was famous primarily because of Nick Yau (Tse Kwan Ho). Coincidentally, Nick Yau was also Michelle's grandfather's student. Pulling the strings, Michelle managed to get a job at Nee. However, she was employed only to help out with making coffee, photocopying things and other miscellaneous things. Then, Ella was selected for a scholarship to pursue study in fashion designing. However, because of their getting trapped in a lift, Ella became late and could not secure the scholarship. For failing to secure the scholarship, Ella became heartbroken. In this situation, FeiFei and Michelle decided to help to get her a job at Nee. And the three friends finally got united at Nee. Michelle noticed that her two best friends always attending meetings at Nee. She wished to join them as well. She tried her best to learn and became skilled. Finally Nick allowed her to attend meetings as well. Soon, Ella started to feel jealous as she realizes that Michelle's ideas are accepted most of the time instead of hers. Out of her envy, She started to trick Michelle.

Meanwhile, Michelle eventually becomes a student of Nick Yau. Elaine (Melissa Ng) who had been dating Nick Yau for more than 10 years, finally decided to break up with him as she feels that Nick Yau would be better off with Michelle. Eventually, this became true and Michelle and Nick Yau started to date. However, this was only shown in episode 20, the last one. For a more pleasant ending, it showed how Ella decided to change for the better and how she worked hard with Michelle and she finally secured a scholarship to study fashion designing. This series ends with a scene at the departure hall of Hong Kong Airport. In the end scene, Nick says that he would wait for Michelle to return.

Soon after a wild night at the pub, twenty-year-old Sharon Curley finds herself expecting a little "snapper" by a man she loathes. Her refusal to name the father sets in motion a family drama involving her three brothers, two sisters, and her parents, along with her employers and all her friends. Kellegher, playing the role as a coarse, earthy, yet remarkably sensible young woman (with the exception of her excessive drinking during her pregnancy) soon discovers who her friends really are, as some people tease and torment her, some make remarks to her siblings, some force her father to take direct action in her defence, and all spread gossip. She decides to keep the baby ("snapper") and her family, each in their own way, eventually decides to support her. Her father particularly studies up on childbirth and female anatomy (with gratifying results for his wife as a bonus).

Des Curley, Sharon's father, shows the whole world in his face, his emotions ranging from outrage toward Sharon for embarrassing the family to tender concern as her time draws near. As the eight-member family trips all over each other emotionally (symbolised in their battles for the one bathroom, often occupied by Sharon), the tensions within the family grow more intense. Widespread speculation about who the father disrupts the neighbourhood, with some hotheads visiting their own brand of justice on the Curleys. The arrival of the baby offers a chance at resolution.

It turns out that Sharon's friend's father, Georgie Burgess, got her pregnant after he had sex with a severely inebriated Sharon in a car park. It is suggested that this encounter was nonconsensual. Her story is that it was a Spanish sailor, but the whole town suspects the truth that it is Burgess as he writes a letter to his wife apologising for getting a young girl pregnant.

Scientist Bruce Gordon comes to a secluded area in Africa after concluding that a series of electrically induced natural disasters had originated from in the area. There he finds the crazed Zolok, last of the Lemurians, in a secret complex inside a mountain.

Zolok had created the natural disasters as a prelude to his attempt to take over the world, holding a brilliant scientist, Dr. Manyus, there hostage, along with his daughter, Natcha. He had forced Manyus to create mindless "giant" slaves out of the natives as a private army and as the serial progresses we learn Manyus also turned another tribe, the spider-worshipping Wangas, into thin, impotent whites. Gordon helps Manyus and his daughter to escape Zolok, but they encounter Ben Ali, a malignant slave trader; meet the sexy native Queen Rama, who tries to help them; and survive harrowing jungle adventures before returning to the Lost City and stopping Zolok's plan.

In a Broadway theater, from a darkened place in the audience, director Zach (Michael Douglas) judges dozens of dancers and their performances. After initial eliminations, sixteen hopefuls remain. Arriving late is former lead dancer Cassie (Alyson Reed) who once had a tempestuous romantic relationship with Zach but left him for Hollywood. Now she has not worked in over a year, and is desperate enough to be part of the chorus line.

Zach is looking for eight dancers (four men and four women) and has them introduce themselves. As they each step forward, he interviews them and coaxes the dancers into talking about a variety of topics. This includes how they began dancing, first sexual experiences, their families, and hardships they've faced. Through their stories, the group reveals how being a performer is a difficult profession.

As Cassie enters the stage, Zach tells Larry to take all the dancers to a rehearsal room. Cassie pleads to continue the audition. Zach relents and sends her to learn the routine with everyone else. Paul re-enters the stage and tells Zach about how he was sexually molested as a child while watching musicals on 42nd Street. Paul describes his first job at a drag cabaret. When his parents found out that he was gay and performing in drag, they couldn't look him in the eye. Zach embraces Paul, showing compassion for the first time in the audition.

Larry brings the dancers back onstage to perform the newly learned routine. Zach shouts at Cassie, as she cannot blend in. They argue about their past romantic relationship while Larry leads the group in a tap combination. Suddenly, Paul slips, falls and injures his knee. As he is rushed to the hospital, Zach asks the dancers what they will do once they can no longer perform. Diana is the only one that can truly answer the question, telling him that she wants to be remembered, even just for dancing in a chorus, which all the hopefuls seem to agree with. Zach chooses Val, Cassie, Bebe, Diana, Mike, Mark, Richie, and Bobby to be in his line.

Months later, the eight performers are seen performing "One" in front of an audience. As the song progresses, the cut dancers also appear onstage and it becomes harder to identify each dancer. The dancer's reflections from the mirror joins them and soon the stage is filled with hundreds of dancers. As the credits roll, the song's tag vamps as the dancers continue dancing in a giant kickline.

Boroff is a mad scientist who has invented a "disintegrator gas" and plans to smuggle it to his buyers in Morovania. When his ship, the ''Carfax'', gets stranded on outlying rocks in the first chapter, the Coast Guard comes to rescue him. Recognized by the reporters, Jean and Snapper, Boroff runs and kills the pursuing Coast Guard Ensign Jim Kent, who turns to be Lt. Terry Kent's brother.

As the gas is made from the rare substances ''Arnatite'' (which is radioactive) and ''Zanzoid'', Boroff attempts to acquire more of these materials to create more (including salvaging supplies of arnatite from the sunken ''Carfax''). Hot on his heels are the Coast Guard, led by Lt. Kent, and the two reporters, with the expert aid of Jean's chemist brother, Dick.

Eventually Terry finds, and leads a squad against, Boroff's cave-based hideout, with disintegrator gas bombs exploding around them.

The show concerns a young moose named Elliot who lives in a place called "the Big House". He goes on adventures with his friends Beaverton, Lionel, Socks, and Paisley.

A hitchhiking drifter (Billy Burke) has his life irrevocably changed when he meets a seductive young woman (Neve Campbell) who lures him into disposing of the body of her husband.

The Father, an aging, half blind man who carries the title of colonel within the village, has made a promise to bury the recently deceased former doctor in spite of the consensus within Macondo that he should be left to rot within the corner house where he had lived in complete social isolation for the past decade. The daughter, Isabel, is obliged to accompany her father out of respect for traditional values while knowing she and her son will be doomed to face the wrath of her neighbors in Macondo. The narrative of the grandson, on the other hand, is more preoccupied with the mystery and wonder of death.

As with many of his stories, such as ''Love in the Time of Cholera'' and'' Chronicle of a Death Foretold'', García Márquez introduces a dramatic scene to begin his narrative and then moves backward, rehashing the past that will lead up to the ultimate conclusion. It is discovered within the narrative that the center of all the conflict (the deceased) is a doctor who came to Macondo with a mysterious past and no clear name. The man's only saving grace is a letter of recommendation from the Colonel Aureliano Buendia, one of the main characters of the later '' One Hundred Years of Solitude''. It is this letter that leads the stranger to the family that serves collectively as narrator to the drama that unfolds.

Joe (Cage) is a professional freelance contract killer who works strictly by the rules; never socializing outside his work, staying secluded in quiet spots, never interacting or meeting with his handlers and always leaving on time without a trace. He usually hires young pickpockets or small-time criminals as his local help, whom he usually murders after the end of the job to prevent any identification. He uses multiple aliases and also has middlemen between him and his handlers. He also carries a watch to perform a hit in specific time and correctly visualizes his every target.

After completing a hit in Prague and killing his current help, Joe travels to Bangkok for an assignment to assassinate four people for notorious Bangkok crime boss Surat, whom he never meets. Joe occasionally provides insight via voiceover narration throughout the film. He hires a local Thai pickpocket named Kong, who has simple English knowledge, as his go-between in Bangkok, a condition of the contract being that the gang will never meet Joe. Contracts from the Bangkok gangsters are passed to Kong one by one via a nightclub dancer, Aom. Joe's first execution in Bangkok is done on motorcycle; when the target car stops at a red light, Joe kills all the occupants with a machine pistol.

Kong retrieves information about the second target, again via Aom, and the pair become friendlier with every contact. Before Joe executes his mission, Kong informs him of the target, Pramod Juntasa, another notorious gang lord and Surat's rival crime boss who acts as a sex trafficker, buying young girls from impoverished parents and selling them for sex. Joe sneaks into the target's penthouse and drowns him in his pool. Unsatisfied with Kong's assistance, Joe contemplates killing him, but after a brief confrontation when Kong is ambushed by local gangsters regarding a briefcase containing information files of Surat's/Joe's targets, he instead decides to act as Kong's mentor and trains him for self-defense.

Midway through the movie, Joe meets Fon, a deaf-mute pharmacist, with whom he becomes intrigued after a brief consultation. Joe later returns to the pharmacy to invite Fon out for dinner. Soon after Joe falls for Fon and meets her mother, the affair is cut short when he shoots and kills two assailants in Fon's presence. Blood splatters on Fon, and she runs off, trembling and traumatized by the violent deaths. Feeling betrayed, Fon cannot forgive Joe and ends their relationship.

Before the third kill, the gang attempts to identify Joe, and he warns them off. For the third execution that takes place at the Damnoen Saduak floating market, Kong assists Joe. The kill does not go as planned, and the target, a playboy and a criminal underworld associate, nearly gets away but Joe manages to catch and assassinate him. Before beginning his last mission Joe visits Fon, presumably to say goodbye. She initially ignores him but as Joe begins to drive away she runs after his car.

His fourth target is the Prime Minister of Thailand, who is revered by many but a great hindrance to Surat due to his hard-line crackdown on organized crime. Joe is about to make the kill when he has second thoughts, is spotted, and escapes through a panicking crowd. Meanwhile, the gang has abducted Aom and Kong with plans to execute them. Joe, now a target, is attacked at his house by four of Surat's henchmen. He uses explosives to take them out and is faced with the choice of rescuing Kong or leaving the country unharmed. Joe decides to rescue Kong, so he sets off to the gang's headquarters with one of the half-alive attackers.

Joe goes to the gang's headquarters, kills most of the gang including Surat's underboss/bodyguard (who is blown into half by explosives), and saves Kong and Aom. The fearful gang leader flees to his car with three other accomplices. Joe spots him and shoots the gang members, then gets into the back seat with Surat. As the police arrive at the location, Joe realizes he has only one bullet. He puts his head adjacent to Surat's, puts the gun up to his temple and pulls the trigger, killing himself and Surat.

Alternate ending

An alternate ending to the theatrical version shows that before Joe kills himself in the original version, Kong steals a police car and comes to his rescue. He kills Surat and runs to the stolen car (although he is shot once in the arm). After eluding the police officers, they hide in a neighborhood a few meters away from Surat's headquarters. As locals come out to investigate the commotion, Kong reveals Joe is the man who killed Surat. They help him recuperate while one local remarks Surat's bad reputation, adding his death marks an end to his crimes and atrocities in their place. Kong then takes Joe to a boatman and gives him his passports, so he may flee the country. Joe thanks Kong for his assistance and gives him a bank account number with "a bonus", stating he was a good student. Joe then departs, with the camera focused on Kong (from Joe's perspective, similar to the original ending).

The people of Kalevala are a peaceful hard working people, they have everything they need and want, bar the mystical Sampo, a magical mill which will make grain, salt and gold and give prosperity to whoever possesses it. The only person in Kalevala able to make a Sampo is the smith Ilmarinen, however he cannot make it until his sister Annikki has fallen in love. Annikki eventually falls in love with the young hard working Lemminkäinen. All is not perfect, however. There is a dark dismal land called Pohjola ruled over by a wicked witch called Louhi, and she wishes for a Sampo, but her wizards are unable to forge one. Louhi is advised that only Ilmarinen is able to forge a Sampo. Louhi sends her enchanted cloak to bring Annikki to Pohjola as ransom. Lemminkäinen runs to Ilmarinen to inform him that his sister has been taken and vows to return her, Ilmarinen agrees to come with him and they set off on a boat constructed of an ancient oak tree.

On arrival Louhi demands they complete a simple task each, Lemminkäinen is asked to plow a field of snakes, which he does with the aid of a steel horse made by Ilmarinen. Then after Louhi's wizards destroy their boat, blaming it on a great fish, Ilmarinen forges another ship from iron. The final task is set to Ilmarinen; he is to forge a Sampo. He sets to work and, after some failed bargaining for another task, and with the aid of the trolls of Pohjola on the bellows and the fire from heaven itself, he forges a beautiful Sampo, which immediately begins to make gold, grain and salt.

Lemminkäinen and Ilmarinen are reunited with Annikki and they set sail for Kalevala. Lemminkäinen is upset when he is informed that the people of Kalevala will never be able to reap the benefits of the Sampo and dives into the sea to swim back and recover it. Back in Pohjola, Lemminkäinen releases the mist from the prison Louhi has placed it in and it covers the whole land. When the mist clears the Sampo has gone and Lemminkäinen is on a boat heading back to Kalevala. His boat is wrecked on the ocean surface when Louhi orders that the wind be set free, and the Sampo is destroyed and Lemminkäinen presumed lost. Lemminkäinen manages to swim back to Kalevala and manages to return a small piece of the Sampo, which Väinämöinen announces will bring great prosperity and joy to the people of the land. Lemminkäinen and Annikki marry and a great feast and dance is arranged. However, Louhi, angry at the betrayal, comes to Kalevala and steals their sun. Returning it to Pohjola, she locks it in a deep mountain cave.

As Kalevala is plunged into perpetual darkness things look very bleak. However, Lemminkäinen is still hopeful, he asks Ilmarinen to forge a new sun, which he begins work on. But wise old Väinämöinen informs him it's futile and that they must go to Pohjola and recover the sun by force. Väinämöinen tells the people this battle will be fought using kantele and not bladed weapons. The people of Kalevala prepare by cutting trees and bringing all precious metals to Ilmarinen to forge the strings. When the two people (Kalevala and Pohjola) meet on a frozen lake for battle, Väinämöinen begins playing and the trolls of Louhi begin to drift to sleep. Louhi tries in vain to get them to fight, but she fails and her trolls fall down unconscious. Louhi then sends her magic cape to kill the people of Kalevala but it is beaten down into a hole in the ice. Lemminkäinen marches up to the mountain which contains the sun, and Louhi turns herself into stone in fear. Lemminkäinen slices the stone door of the mountain open with his sword, releasing the sun to shine over the lands of Kalevala.

The film ends with the people of Kalevala looking to the bright sky in wonder and happiness.

Modest, kind-hearted aspiring actress Louise Mauban (Luise Rainer) attends the Paris School of Drama while working nights at a dreary factory job, where she has made friends with another worker. She often comes to class late but rather than admit she has to work nights, she tells her fellow students stories of a luxurious life and her wealthy, handsome boyfriend, Marquis Andre D'Abbencourt (Alan Marshal). The other girls begin to suspect that her stories are just fantasies that she weaves to relieve her humdrum life. One of them, Nana (Paulette Goddard), maliciously invites Louise to her "birthday party", having arranged for Andre to attend. However, the plan backfires. Andre is enchanted by Louise and the lie turns into the truth. He showers her with gifts and takes her out every night.

Andre eventually becomes enamored of another woman and breaks up with Louise by letter. When Louise's friends show up, she tells them to take their pick of the fabulous clothes Andre has given her. However, to a late-arriving Nana, she shows the letter, as her "gift". Nana's heart is softened to her rival and they become friends.

One of the teachers is impressed by Louise's sincerity and talent, but another teacher and aging star, Madame Therese Charlot (Gale Sondergaard), is jealous of Louise. Madame Therese is upset to learn from the school's director, Monsieur Pasquel, Sr. (Henry Stephenson) that she will not get the leading role in a new play about Joan of Arc because she is no longer young enough. In her bitterness, she lashes out when Louise is late to class once again; she informs Louise that she will demand her expulsion. Louise follows her and, to Charlot's surprise, thanks her. Louise explains that she believes that to be a great star, she must suffer, as Madame Charlot herself had suffered early in her own career.

The next day, Louise defiantly returns to class. Madame Charlot announces that she has accepted another, more mature role in the play and recommended Louise for the lead. Louise gets the part and is a great success on opening night, receiving a standing ovation. On the night of her triumph, she turns down party invitations, including one from Andre, to celebrate with her friend from the factory.

The principal character is a young Scottish pilot with bush-flying experience in Canada, Donald Ross, who is hired by an Oxford don, Cyril Lockwood, to pilot an air survey mission of Brattalid in Greenland. Lockwood's interest is in the early Viking seafarers and their exploits, and although he appears to have little knowledge of the needs of such a project, he insists on their starting as soon as possible, with his elder brother David, a businessman, providing finance.

Ross, as the hired expert, then has to contend with the 'helpful' suggestions from both the financier and Lockwood's young daughter, Alix. This causes early tensions in the preparatory stages.

While the preliminary dig is ongoing Ross shoulders much responsibility including keeping the aircraft safe in a tidal zone. Worn out with the expedition's work – all of which has fallen solely on him – and a prolonged lack of sleep induced by worry over the expedition, he enters a coma induced by the sleeping tablets he has been forced to take to keep going, and in it dreams that he and Alix were once Scottish slaves aboard Leif Ericson's vessel on its voyage of discovery to Greenland. A part of this dream includes the leaving behind by the two slaves of a stone, with their names carved on it, at the Viking explorers' landing point in North America.

Ross recovers and tells Alix and the don of his dreams. The last remnant of photographic survey is successfully completed, and the three complete their air crossing to North America, making landfall in eastern Canada. Flying down the coast towards New York Ross recognizes where he dreamed Leif Ericson's expedition landed on the coast of Cape Cod; they land to investigate and find the stone with the slaves' names on it.

The technical details of a trans-Atlantic flight of this period (late 1930s) are accurate and of interest. The type of aircraft is a fictional radial-engined floatplane intended for bush use, made by a fictional Detroit firm named Cosmos. It corresponds roughly to the performance of a Noorduyn Norseman.

This was Shute's first attempt at re-incarnation as a plot, a second later work on this theme is ''In the Wet''.

Mary Gray (Mary Astor) and Dick Mercer (David Newell) elope, since Mary's wealthy parents would never approve of the marriage. In Atlantic City, they arrive at the humble efficiency hotel room Mary has taken. Dick is not impressed, and would prefer they stay in a fancier hotel. An argument ensues over whether Dick should remain an idle playboy or go to work. Mary decides to call it off, but Dick refuses to let her, locking her in the room while he goes for a minister.

Meanwhile, Red Dugan (Maurice Black) robs a jewelry store and slips into Mary's room (formerly his). Dugan hides a stolen necklace in Mary's handbag, before he and a policeman fatally shoot each other.

When Clara Muldoon (Natalie Moorhead), the chambermaid, comes to change the linen, Mary asks her for a hiding place, giving her $300. Clara is about to switch jobs, but gives Mary her new job information instead. After Mary leaves, Clara comes upon Dugan, who manages to tell her that he "put it in her bag" before dying. Police Sergeant Daly (Paul Hurst) questions Clara, then accuses Dick of being Dugan's associate when he returns. Daly takes the pair in for further grilling.

As "Sally Fairchild", Mary shows up at the home of wealthy bachelor George Blaine (Lloyd Hughes) to take the job. However, it is clear to George and his valet Williams that there is something not quite right about her. Her manners are too polished for a servant and she is very pretty. (George also notices that the monogram on her purse is MG.) George decides not to hire her, but when a policeman comes and asks for directions, she faints after the man leaves. Under the circumstances, George cannot send her away in that condition, so he decides to hire her after all. Afterward, George examines Mary's purse and finds a pearl necklace. Meanwhile, Clara, who is part of the gang, tells the thieves what she knows. Barney Black, their leader, decides to wait until things quieten down before retrieving the loot.

George sees a newspaper article about Mary Gray's elopement, along with a photo of her. He decides to discharge her, but he and Mary are attracted to each other, so she is able to make him change his mind again. Then Clara shows up and demands half of the proceeds of the necklace from Mary. Mary does not know what she is talking about, but offers to give her a valuable ring to go away. While Mary gets it, Clara finds and takes the necklace from her purse. After Clara leaves, Dick arrives (having paid Clara $500 for the information), followed by Sergeant Daly and then the crooks. The thieves abduct Mary. Daly, however, catches Clara when she tries to slip away by herself. She gives up the pearls in exchange for leniency. George drives off after Mary, but Barney shoots him in the shoulder and also his two front tires. The gang head to their hideout: a fake hospital. When George pulls into a garage, one of the men offers to drive him to the same hospital. George is tipped off when he sees that the doctor there has a pistol. He manages to rescue Mary, just before the police arrive to arrest the jewel thieves.

Marcus Templeton (Scott) is a thirty-year-old, unmarried security guard who describes himself as "a lonely, desperate man." He works at night and spends his days looking at pornography and takes to peeping into windows in the hopes of seeing naked women. Marcus is slightly overweight and spends a fair amount of screen time obsessing about his physical health, finally resorting to wearing a corset and using questionable weight-loss products such as Reduce-O-Creme, which promises to "melt, melt, melt your fat away" upon application.

After several disastrous attempts at dating women, Marcus resorts to seeing prostitutes. He begins to secretly record his encounters with the call girls, first with a small tape recorder and then with a hidden video camera. He quickly spends his entire life savings and contracts sexually transmitted diseases, all the while losing his grip on reality (his father "appears" on the television screen and berates Marcus).

When a disagreeable prostitute discovers she is being surreptitiously videotaped, she pulls a handgun out of her purse, shoots Marcus and steals his video equipment. As Marcus lies bleeding to death he grabs the nearby bottle of Reduce-O-Creme and applies it to his belly in a final, futile gesture.

Welcome to wildly eclectic and diverse West Beach High, where the annual student body president election will pit the quirky, much-beloved incumbent Sissy Frenchfry against a handsome, charismatic – and socially intolerant – transfer student with a devious plan to restore the ''status quo.''

Sissy Frenchfry is the most popular student at West Beach High. He's got bleached blond hair with pink tips, earrings, and a decidedly unique fashion sense. The eternally good-natured Sissy is student body president, a member of every club on campus, and head of the yearbook and newspaper. Sissy IS the big man on campus, until one day...

A transfer student named Bodey McDodey arrives at West Beach. Bodey is the quintessential All-American jock: handsome, arrogant, charming, and accomplished. He's ready to assume command as Alpha male in what should be a familiar high school setting; however, he's astounded at what he finds at West Beach. QB & Ross, the school's quarterback and linebacker, are boyfriends and openly affectionate; the talented yet plump Georgia Peach holds the head cheerleader position despite not being a size 2; and the school's student videographer and Sissy's best friend, Dana Aquino, is a goth transgender student. “What is wrong with this school?” Bodey asks himself. The worst of all is the fact that Sissy Frenchfry, someone Bodey considers a loser and a nuisance, holds the position of ultimate authority and respect in the school: Student Body President. Bodey sets his sights on the presidency, aiming to change West Beach forever.

What follows is Bodey bribing, seducing, and manipulating his way into a position of popularity and power. Sissy must choose between his integrity, his duty to maintain the peace of the school, and his own desire to win the election.

Will Sissy win back the school?

''Luster'' takes place over a weekend in Los Angeles.

Friday

Jackson wakes up in the aftermath of an orgy and heads to his job at his friend Sam's alternative record store. At the store he gets a call from Sonny Spike. On his way out the door, Jackson runs into customer Derek, who professes his love at first sight.

Jackson meets Sonny at his hotel and Sonny asks him to write the lyrics for Sonny's next album. Stoked, Jackson stops back at his house where he finds his cousin Jed in the shower, which immediately inspires thoughts of incest. Jackson and Jed head back to the store, just in time to head out to a book signing by Kurt Domain with Sam (who, sadly, leaves friend Alyssa behind).

At the book signing, Jackson runs into Billy, who he'd met at last night's orgy. Jackson professes ''his'' love at first sight for Billy, who agrees to have coffee but flatly informs Jackson he won't have sex with him. The author spots Jed, and, taking him as his muse, writes a piece on Jed's body.

Saturday morning

Jackson, inspired by Jed, writes several poems. Meanwhile, Jed is in the desert, serving as muse to yet a third artist, Alyssa. A bloodied Billy calls Jackson at the record store. Jackson picks him up and takes him home. Billy explains that his ex-lover sexually tortured him.

Leaving Billy to sleep, Jackson gives his poems to Sonny, who thinks they're great but changes the sex of the subjects to female. Jed returns to Jackson's place and crawls into bed next to Billy. Jackson goes back to work, where Derek is waiting for him. Derek again professes his love. Jackson explains he doesn't feel the same but they kiss anyway. Jackson drives Derek home.

Alyssa takes her photos of Jed to a gallery and lands a showing in New York City.

Billy wakes up next to Jed and engages in some sexual torture of his own. Sonny decides he must meet Jackson's inspiration and sends a private investigator to get him. The P.I. finds Billy and brings him to Sonny. It was Sonny who had tortured Billy previously. Billy tells Sonny that he tortured someone that morning and realized that he hated it and that he wants to enslave himself to Sonny.

Sam visits his mother and surprises her with the news that he's paid off her mortgage.

Jackson returns home and finds Jed handcuffed in the shower.

Saturday night

Sam, Jackson and Jed go on a bar crawl through the city. Jackson runs into Sonny and Billy in the restroom of one bar and beats Billy up for what he did to Jed. Sonny gets turned on by it. When Jackson leaves the bar, Sam and Jed are arguing over Sam's unrequited love for someone. Sam drops Jackson and Jed off at Jackson's and gives Jed a videotape to give to Jackson. Jed goes inside and he and Jackson have sex.

Sunday morning

Jackson takes Jed to the airport for his flight back to Iowa. Jed tells him about the tape. Jackson returns home to find Alyssa and her girlfriend Sandra, who tell him that Sam has killed himself. On the tape, Sam says he's in love with Jackson. He knows he'll never be able to be with Jackson the way he wants to and that he has a lot of pain because of that. Distraught, Jackson runs all the way to Derek's place before the tape even ends. He has Derek reassure him that Derek loves him. Jackson strips naked and tells Derek "I'm all yours." Jackson says he doesn't know if he loves Derek but he does think Derek's pretty special, and special is "pretty fuckin' good."

''Packing the Monkeys, Again!'' is story about love couple, which live in small rented apartment. Nebojša is a journalist who works to much and he asks Jelena to do everything what all traditional Montenegrin women does. Jelana studies literature and she is suspicious for Nebojša having an affair. Of course, owners of their apartment are coming in their lives and bringing their problems to house of Nebojša and Jelena - Nata, Dragica's and Dragoljub's daughter is a problematic child. But, most interesting thing is that, person who is re-telling this story, is a man with amnesia who doesn't know in which bathroom he fell on his head and writing is a part of his therapy.

The Tenth Doctor is shocked when Donna Noble, in a wedding dress, appears within the TARDIS while in flight. The Doctor returns Donna to her wedding. At the reception, the Doctor determines that Donna must have absorbed a great deal of dangerous huon particles that drew her to the TARDIS. The reception is attacked by robots dressed as Santa Claus. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to manipulate the sound system to destroy the robotic Santas, and discovers something is controlling them remotely from space.

Learning that Donna and her fiancé Lance Bennett work for a security firm secretly owned by the Torchwood Institute, the Doctor asks Lance to take them there. Underneath the building, the Doctor finds a long tunnel under the Thames Barrier, and a secret laboratory producing huon particles, along with a pit that leads to the centre of the Earth. Their presence brings forth the spider-like Empress of the Racnoss, a species that the Time Lords drove to the brink of extinction in the Dark Times, because they devoured whole worlds. The Empress, who had been hiding in hibernation at the edge of the universe, awoke and secretly used the Torchwood company to gain the equipment to make huon particles. Lance reveals he has been working for the Empress the whole time and purposely fed huon particles to Donna (by adding them to her coffee) to help free the Empress' children and resurrect the species. Donna and the Doctor escape, and the Empress decides to use Lance as a substitute, force-feeding him huon particles and then throwing him into the pit, where he is eaten by the Racnoss children.

The Doctor takes Donna to his TARDIS and travels back billions of years to discover that an inert Racnoss ship became the core of the Earth as the planet formed around it; the Empress is now trying to wake her children aboard that ship with the huon particles. The Doctor and Donna return to the present as other Racnoss start emerging from the pit. The Empress uses her ship to start firing on Earth. The Doctor attempts to offer a peaceful solution but the Empress refuses, and the Doctor is then forced to remotely detonate explosive baubles used by the Santas at the walls of the base, flooding the pit with water from the Thames and wiping out the Racnoss children. The Doctor is prepared to die, but Donna urges him to escape with her, just as the Empress teleports to her ship to try to escape. However, the ship's earlier attacking of London has weakened its defences, and the ship is destroyed by human forces under the direction of "Mr. Saxon". The Doctor offers Donna the opportunity to travel with him. She declines, but suggests he needs a companion to keep his temperament in check.

The story revolves around Milagros and Ivo, two people who fall in love with each other in spite of the odds against them. It is a romantic comedy novela that also touches on issues of family, wealth, greed, deception, and most of all—love. Milagros was brought up in an orphanage when her mother died giving birth to her. She had no idea who her father was and spent all her years despising him for abandoning them.

She ends up becoming a house servant at the Di Carlo mansion when she turns 18, since she can no longer stay in the orphanage. In the mansion, she meets new friends, and people who treat her as family. But she also gains new foes who hate her for her tactless and feisty character. Most of all, she meets the love of her life, Ivo Di Carlo, the heir of the Di Carlo fortune. Theirs is a love-hate relationship, decorated with comedic antics they play on each other, and passion of their true love.

Ivo Di Carlo is a playboy, immature, and boastful. He has had everything handed to him on a silver platter. But he lacks the love of a father, as Federico Di Carlo makes him feel unwanted. Milagros, on the other hand, is religious, playful, and has a strong character. Their relationship survives many challenges, including issues that root from their parents' deceptive acts, secret love affairs, greediness, and ambition. As a playboy, Ivo also has several girls that go between him and Milagros, the most significant are Andrea, Florencia, and Pilar. Milagros also has flings of her own, she forges relationships with Pablo and Sergio.

At some points, the two even think they are siblings, as Federico Di Carlo is revealed to be Milagros' real father. However, it is also later revealed that Ivo is the son of Luisa Di Carlo's lover, Nestor Miranda. In the end, Ivo and Milagros survive the tests of their relationship and wed in front of the people they love.

Rose is comforting her friend Keisha, whose brother Jay is missing in action after the sinking of HMS ''Ascendant'', which has just been towed up the Thames in pieces. Rose drags the Doctor along, and he asks what Jay did on the ship, before deciding to go out for chips (and a newspaper to wrap them in). After he leaves, Jay's soaked and shivering ghost appears to Keisha and Rose. He talks to Keisha first, telling her to come to him before the feast, and asks Rose to come too. Then he melts away into a puddle, which also disappears. The Doctor returns, and tells them about people fainting in the newsagent's.

The Doctor and Rose discuss what she saw, and the Doctor says they should go to Mickey's and see what they can find on the Internet. Mickey has already done the research, and gives them his printouts. They find that the ship has been brought to Stanchion House, and that people are going missing near the part of the Thames where it is located.

When the three of them arrive near the building, they see many guards, and an elderly woman trying to climb over the bridge rail. Her name is Anne, and she says she is trying to get to Peter 'before the feast'. The Doctor and Rose manage to get her off the bridge. Mickey and the soldiers who come running all collapse. The Doctor swipes a pass from one of the soldiers, and tells Rose and Mickey to stay with Anne and not to let her out of their sight.

As Rose and Mickey try to decide where to take Anne, they are approached by an old man in full naval uniform wearing dark glasses and a scarf around his neck, who introduces himself as Rear Admiral John Crayshaw. He allows them to take Anne with them, but tells the soldiers to send the ambulance away when it arrives.

Meanwhile, the Doctor goes to Stanchion House, and introduces himself as 'Sir John Smith, Scientific Advisor to the Admiralty' with his psychic paper. He glances quickly at the visitor's book, and says that he has come to see V. Swann. The lift operator brings him to the correct floor, and watches until he goes in. He talks to Vida Swann for a minute before she mentions that her PC had told her Sergeant Jodie North had come in, and that she had alerted security when she saw him instead.

The Doctor runs out of her office, and realizes there were soldiers coming up the stairs and the lift, and no time to get out a window, so he hides in a cupboard until the soldiers pass, then slips into the lift before the doors close. He uses a sonic screwdriver to open the hidden controls, and goes to the lowest level. The doors open into an underground hangar.

The Doctor is noticed by a scientist named Huntley, and after looking at a section of the ship, the Doctor says that it was sliced up using hydrogen fused anti-cellularisation. Alarms start to go off, soldiers come down the lift, and the Doctor takes off for a room labelled 'Decontamination.' He runs through it into a damp, dirty and dingily lit access corridor. After closing the doors behind him, he notices the salty reek to the air. As he moves down the corridor, he sticks his finger in a mucky puddle and decides it is saltwater.

The corridor opens into a large, dark, circular chamber with a very high ceiling and a huge filthy pool in the centre of the floor. There is a ladder on one side, and the air smells of sea water. The Doctor takes a polythene bag from his pocket and fills it with water from the pool, and then starts to climb the ladder as he hears the doors opening behind him.

The ladder is damp, as if someone sopping wet had climbed up it ahead of him, and didn't dry before reaching the top. There is a barrier across the top of the chamber, but the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the inspection hatch, which has blood on it. The Doctor climbs through with bullets flying around him, and finds himself looking into another enormous access tunnel.

As the Doctor splashes through the freezing salty water in the access tunnel, he comes upon another figure. When it turns, the Doctor sees a young man with bloody welts on his face and neck, and eyes like huge pearls. He tells the Doctor that he doesn't want to hurt his little Keisha, but he can't help it. The Doctor realizes this must be Jay, just as the water gets even deeper and starts churning. Out of the water appears a pirate and a U-boat captain, who sweeps Jay back the way he'd come and vanishes. The Doctor decides he can't do anything to help Jay right now, and continues down the tunnel. He ends up on a tugboat, its windows covered by tarpaulin.

At Keisha's, the three of them are talking, and Rose realizes that just before Jay appeared, people had collapsed at the newsagent's, and when Anne's son appeared, the soldiers went down. Rose decides to go down to the newsagent's and see what she can find out. She buys a couple of papers, and the woman behind the counter collapses as Jay appears again.

Jay also appears to Keisha, and Anne's son to her. Mickey tries to stop Anne leaving and isn't able to, but does manage to lock Keisha in the bathroom. Rose runs back and tells her to go after Anne. She heads for the river.

On the tugboat, the Doctor and Vida meet again. While they talk, the Doctor starts pushing buttons and levers, and gets the boat moving, just as soldiers start firing on it. The Doctor tells her that Crayshaw probably wants to kill them both, as she said she'd been a thorn in his side.

When Rose gets to the river, there are people trying to jump in, soldiers trying to stop them, and other people watching. As Rose stands there, a tug appears, headed for a restaurant barge, and Rose sees the Doctor climbing around the prow, trying to uncover the windows. She yells at him, and he waves back and tells her to get everyone off the barge. As the tug crashes into the barge, the Doctor and Vida leap off.

The three of them go to the European Office of Oceanic Research and Development, where Vida works. The Doctor asks Vida to show him the 'biggest and shiniest lab' she has. Vida says that she hasn't been able to contact her boss all day, and there is a Vice Admiral Kelper from Norfolk due to arrive the next day. The Doctor tells Rose to have Mickey come over and bring Keisha.

Vida talks about her work studying ocean currents, what is in them and how they move around, using tracers they had developed. The Doctor is busy being all 'boy-with-a-train-set' with the water he brought. Vida says they were studying water taken from the area where the ''Ascendant'' sank, and found no sign of tracers, but there were salts and proteins unlike anything previously discovered.

The Doctor asks Mickey and Vida to go through the naval personnel records and see if the crew of the ''Ascendant'' had anything in common. He takes blood samples from Rose, Keisha, and Vida, and finds that Rose and Keisha have alien matter in their blood, and specks in their eyes.

While going through the computer files, Mickey looks up Commodore Powers (Crayshaw's boss), and discovers that he was on a ship that sank in the North Sea three years ago. Then they find that a John Anthony Crayshaw sank in the North Sea in 1759. They run to tell the Doctor.

The Doctor is still working with the water when he realizes the beaker he is analysing is empty, and the sink is full. He smells seawater, and then the water in the sink jumps out and attacks him, covering his face, but he manages to escape.

Rose is in the hallway with Keisha when Mickey and Vida come up, and then suddenly it fills with water. Three figures appear in it – a pirate, U-boat captain, and a Victorian lady. They grab Vida and carry her away. Rose chases after, grabbing onto the back of a police van. When the van stops, Rose finds herself near the river. While trying to help someone else, she falls into the water and is taken by the water creatures.

The Doctor, Mickey, and Keisha drive around for hours, but cannot find either Rose or Vida. They go back to the estate, and Mickey walks Keisha to her door while the Doctor waits in the car. They see a dripping wet Rose ghost, and when the Doctor comes upstairs, he says that he has seen her too, although not as clearly. Jackie (Rose's mum) also sees the image, and is furious with the Doctor. He leaves Keisha with her, while he and Mickey go to get into Stanchion House.

Vida awakes to find herself in the ''Ascendant'' s storeroom. Crayshaw is there, and tells her that they are 'of the waterhive.' The room is full of people who have recently been taken. Crayshaw explains that they are acclimatising, and only after many years can they be on both land and water. They need Vida to capture Kelper, so they can spread all over the world.

Mickey and the Doctor go to the Aldgate tube station, to reach a conduit full of phone lines, which passes within a few inches of the decontamination chamber. Mickey asks how he plans to get through the wall, and the Doctor says 'I'm getting quite good at resonating concrete.' He tells Mickey that the tunnel is probably one of the safest places to be, as there aren't many people around to filch water from, so no image of Rose to haunt them. 'I don't want to see her like that again. Do you?'

Rose is moving around underwater, and thinking of her family and the Doctor. Huntley finds Rose, and takes her to where a few of the ''Ascendant'' crew are together, including Jay. He tells her that she can't think of her loved ones, because it is what will make them like her. She thinks of the TARDIS instead, and that helps. Huntley tells her that some people have been able to see through their images, and control them somewhat, and encourages her to try.

Crayshaw takes Vida to an empty Stanchion House in the morning, to arrange a meeting with Kelper, but he is already there. Vida tries to escape with him, but the water prevents it, and they are taken into the lift. When they reach the basement, they find all the rest of the staff. The decontamination doors open, and filthy water comes flooding in.

There is a sudden explosion, and part of the wall tumbles in, revealing Mickey and the Doctor. Vida, Kelper, and a couple of other people manage to climb out before the water traps everyone else. Kelper leaves to talk to the military, saying 'We're going to need Torchwood.' As the Doctor, Mickey and Vida talk about what to do next, the Rose image appears to the Doctor and starts to drain water from Mickey and Vida. Rose herself is able to stop it though, and tell the Doctor to stop the aliens. The Doctor says that she was able to hijack the apparition.

The Doctor realizes that the filaments that Vida has been working with disrupt communication in the hive, and this might be a way to defeat them. He sends Mickey and Vida to find the crates that were on the ''Ascendant'' and dump them into the river, while he creates a distraction. At the same time, Rose, Jay, Huntley and the others start making their way toward the surface. Vida and Mickey are almost caught by the water, but Rose and the rest interfere, and then help them to release the filaments.

As they are released, Rose thinks of the Doctor, and is able to see him and tell him that they have done it. He says, 'Of course you did it,' and activates the tracers. The water in the Thames thickens and changes, and all the people who had been taken are pushed to the surface, restored to normal.

''Teddy Bears' Picnic'' covers an annual encampment of prominent male leaders at the Zambezi Glen.

The film starts out with the first ever women's day at the glen, where wives and girlfriends of Zambezi members are invited to visit the glen ahead of the annual encampment, which also serves to introduce the glen and the characters to the audience. The actual retreat itself begins after the members have returned without any women and kicks off with the "Assassination of Time", based on the real ''Cremation of Care'' at the Bohemian Grove, with a pelican replacing the latter's owl. After that, the festivities begin, including an all-male chorus line in drag, which is photographed by one of the club employees who smuggles out the pictures to the news media.

This violation of the privacy of the glen causes the leaders of the membership to work on spin control, while the employee who took the pictures is emboldened by his success and the promise of a hefty reward to record footage of the glen with a camera smuggled in with the help of a local newscaster. In this time we also see what members do to enjoy themselves at the retreat, including drinking, urinating on trees while naked, and visiting nearby prostitutes.

After filming some of the activities at the glen, the cameraman is spotted by some members and flees into the woods. From here, the members invoke their privilege and connections, with disastrous results. The members call in the military to track down the cameraman with dogs, flares, and helicopters, which sets off a forest fire. When the road out of the glen is blocked by an overturned truck filled with drinks for the glen members, one of the characters orders his chauffeur to drive through anyway, making the blockage worse. A helicopter flying without lights at night at the behest of one of the members collides with a news helicopter covering the fire.

Steve Davitt is held in a medium security prison and is struggling with a choice between two options: serving his full sentence and returning legitimately to his wife and family, or escaping and ending up on the run. Having received what he considers to be an unjust recommendation from the Adult Authority Board, he decides to escape. However, he is surprised by a trustee-inmate whom he has befriended, and a fist-fight ensues. Davitt wins the fight, and heading for the barbed-wire fence starts to climb. He hesitates twice, and looking back to see his friend on the ground decides against escaping after all. The scene ends with him turning round and heading back to the prison.

Sean McGinnis is a film student who moves to Los Angeles to break into the movie business. While looking for work, he passes the time watching rented videos, preferring classic films. He sets out to watch ''Citizen Kane'', but the videotape has accidentally been switched with an adult movie called ''Citizen Cum''. Sean becomes instantly obsessed with the star of ''Citizen Cum'', Johnny Rebel. His interest in Johnny leads Sean to turn down work in the mainstream film industry to become a cameraman for Men of Janus, the production company that has Johnny under exclusive contract. On his first shoot, Sean ends up as a "fluffer" for Johnny, performing (offscreen) oral sex on him to help him maintain an erection and reach orgasm for the "money shot." He learns that Johnny's real name is Mikey, he is "gay-for-pay" and doesn't perform oral sex on other men or even kiss. Johnny has Sean fluff him on additional productions, and Sean's infatuation continues to grow. He confides his feelings for Johnny to co-worker Silver, who tells him that the relationship is hopeless because Johnny's a porn star and straight. Meanwhile, Johnny's girlfriend Julie, who works as a stripper under her stagename Babylon but who has tried to move into mainstream acting, learns she is pregnant.

Trying to break from Johnny, Sean begins dating an acupuncture student named Brian. However, Brian breaks up with Sean because of his emotional unavailability, the result of his continuing obsession with Johnny, and because Brian had a bad experience with a past boyfriend who could not have sex without watching porn.

Johnny's crystal meth use spirals out of control. He goes on a five-day binge and misses a scheduled film shoot. The film's producer Sam Martins forces Sean to fluff Johnny's replacement for the shoot. Johnny shows up late to the set and is fired. Julie decides to get an abortion since she cannot rely on Johnny to help raise a child. She breaks up with Johnny and changes the locks to her apartment.

At the studio an expensive video camera goes missing and company manager Chad Cox is found dead in his apartment. The police seek Johnny, under his real name Michael Rossini, for questioning. Johnny turns to Sean for help, and together they flee to Mexico. Once in Mexico, Sean sells his car for getaway money, and the two settle into a cheap Mexican motel. Johnny initially denies involvement in Chad's death but later confesses to Sean that he killed Chad accidentally during a fight over the payoff for stealing the camera for drug money. Stunned, Sean goes out to clear his head, returning later with tequila and snacks. That night, Johnny offers to let Sean service him sexually, but for the first time Sean declines. Sean shares in oblique terms memories of being sexually abused as a child by an adult male neighbor. Johnny starts to cry, saying he can relate because of some of the "fucked up shit" he's been through and that he was made to do things he didn't want to do. Sean comforts Johnny and for the first time calls him "Mikey." They kiss, and then fall asleep.

When Sean wakes the next morning, Johnny is gone along with all of Sean's money. Sean initially tries to hitchhike back to the United States, but ends up accepting an offer to go farther south to San Ignacio, an idyllic location he had previously suggested he and Johnny visit. Babylon packs up her apartment and drives north away from Los Angeles. Mikey survives in Mexico by committing armed robberies, his new gritty reality counterpointed as Sean reads a fan letter written to Johnny, who remains a figure of fantasy. Sean tosses the letter on the side of the road, leaving it - and Johnny - behind.

The TARDIS is forced to land after being affected by an effect similar to an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse). Outside the Doctor and Rose find a normal looking town. The Doctor informs Rose that they cannot re-enter the TARDIS until she can repair her systems. They then set off to find out what is producing the constant pulses and stop it. At the docks are steam powered spaceships. They go to the pub to get more information.

The bartender is a young girl with half of her body replaced by steam-powered robotics. A boy of about ten talking to her, and when the Doctor introduces himself and Rose, the girl gives her name as Silver Sally and the boy's name as Jimm. Jimm and Sally tell them about the zeg. It is a zone of electromagnetic gravitation that interferes with anything containing an electronic circuit. It goes as far as the Outreaches, where a lot of ships get stuck. People still come because they hope to find Hamlek Glint's lost treasure. The planet itself is owned by Drel McCavity, who is a collector of Hamlek Glint artifacts. Jimm's uncle is the biggest collector though.

Jimm's uncle arrives and invites the Doctor and Rose to come visit and hear about Hamlek Glint (the pirate).

The Doctor and Rose return to the docks to see about getting passage off planet for themselves and the TARDIS, but have no luck. While they are there, a body is found. The Doctor uses his psychic paper to pass himself off as an investigator, and begins to ask questions about the body. It is a man they had seen at the pub, who has a small bit of folded paper with a smudge of ink that looks vaguely like a figure. The Doctor says it's what space sailors call a Black Shadow.

The Doctor says that the man was a friend of Drel McCavity, and that someone should tell him, and then volunteers to do it. He asks Rose to track down the man's friends and warn them. At McCavity's there is a gallery full of display cases of Hamlek Glint artifacts. McCavity shows him many of them, then sees the Doctor out, giving him a business card with an invitation to make an appointment later.

Rose locates Edd and Bonny, and learns that they recently sold McCavity some fake Glint artifacts, even though they'd had genuine stuff ten years ago. As she is talking to them, she suddenly realizes they are not alone. A huge shaggy shape with red eyes apologizes, then kills both Edd and Bonny.

The Doctor goes to Bobb's home. It is filled with Glint artifacts, including a photo of the crew, who were all robots except for Glint himself, and the cabin boy Robbie. Bobb says that no one knows what happened to Robbie, but that the robots were all sold for scrap. Glint set sail for Starfall, and was never seen again.

Rose arrives, and is given a tour of Bobb's collection. Part of it is a replica of Glint's Lost Treasure. The Resurrection Casket is supposed to be his greatest find, able to heal hurts, and bring the dead back to life. The Doctor takes Rose over to the photograph, and asks what she thinks of the shadow in the background. She says it looks like the monster that attacked Edd and Bonny. The doorbell rings again, and Jimm runs off to answer it. The Doctor starts digging in his pockets for paper and finds a folded slip that shows the Black Shadow when unfolded. They hear Jimm scream and the monster from earlier goes after the Doctor.

The Doctor runs toward Bobb's exhibition area. After a lot of dodging around, the monster catches him. The Doctor asks how he knows who he's supposed to kill, and the monster replies that he gets a name and description, along with knowing where the parchment is. The Doctor says that he doesn't have a name, so the monster has the wrong person. Confused, Kevin (the monster) lets him go.

They all talk after Kevin leaves, and decide that he is forced to do what someone wishes because that person knows how to use an object that belonged to Glint. The Doctor says the next step is to find Glint's ship, and that he knows how to do it. They just need someone to fund it, and Drel McCavity is probably the person to ask.

After some discussion and questions, McCavity agrees, but says that he is coming along. The Doctor says he needs some equipment that is 'locked up safely in a big blue box.' Rose and the Doctor stop at the pub, and Silver Sally says she can find them a robot crew, and she wants to come along. Jimm is very upset when he is told that he cannot come.

The TARDIS is loaded into the ship's forward escape pod. McCavity brings a bodyguard named Dugg and a wooden chest. The other crew is made up of three robots - Kenny, King, and Jonesy. After sailing for three days, the Doctor gets impatient waiting for the TARDIS to open, and fixes the ship's engines to hurry things along. The TARDIS finally opens, but isn't ready to leave yet. However, the Doctor is able to use it to figure out where Glint's ship is.

Rose visits Sally and overhears her talking to one of the robots. Rose is horrified to realize that Sally is actually a robot, and that she and the other three are all surviving members of Glint's crew. She hears footsteps, and hurries to hide in a cupboard. She gets out, opens the door further down, and sees Jimm curled into a small ball. Sally comes out, and Rose tries to be casual as she leaves, and then runs down to tell the Doctor. He tells Dugg to barricade the door. Sally threatens them from the other side, and gives them a few minutes to decide what to do. The Doctor creates a diversion quickly, and they let Sally and the other robots come in with Jimm.

The Doctor's diversion starts to work, and he makes up a story about what it is, saying that he'll fix it, just put everyone else into the escape pod, with the clamps locked. While they are in the pod waiting for the Doctor, Jimm wakes up. Then they hear the clamps release and the door open, and the Doctor comes in. He gets the controls working, and then realizes that the TARDIS is in the other escape pod.

They navigate the escape pod to the zeg, find Glint's ship, dock, and go on board. McCavity has Dugg bring his wooden chest. They find the treasure room, and go inside. It is empty, except for a large polished black casket the size and shape of a coffin with pipes and wires laid into the lid. It's the Resurrection Casket, and the Doctor tells them not to open it.

As they are discussing the fact that the treasure is gone, a voice comes from the doorway. It's Kevin, who tells them that he lives here, and they all realize that McCavity is the one who 'employs' him, by using the medallion he's wearing, then they hear a loud clang and realize the ship is docking.

With Kevin's help, they decide to move to the games room. They bring the Resurrection Casket with them, to keep it from falling into the robots' hands. Dugg tries to lift it, but he needs help, so Kevin takes it. They use the snooker table to block the door, and then pile other items on top, including the Resurrection Casket and McCavity's chest.

Just as they finish, the door shudders, and the robots are on the other side. Everyone is talking about opening the Casket, and the Doctor keeps telling them no, that it doesn't do what they think it does. McCavity insists that it can bring people back from the dead, and as they argue, the door knocks his chest to the floor, where it bursts open. Out spills a skeleton and the remains of a red dress. McCavity had killed his wife out of jealousy, and wants to use the Resurrection Casket to bring her back.

McCavity has a marked piece of parchment in his hand, and threatens to give it to Rose or Jimm, so that the Doctor will use the Casket, but ends up sneaking it to the Doctor instead. Just as the robots break into the room, the Doctor starts running from Kevin, but Kevin hides behind the sofa.

Rose yells at Dugg to take the Casket out, while she and Jimm try to delay the robots. Dugg is looking for a place to hide the casket, so he can go back and help Rose and Jimm, when Kevin takes it from him. Dugg goes back and takes over the defense, telling Rose and Jimm to run.

McCavity attacks the Doctor with a sword, but the Doctor avoids him and ends up in the main engine room. McCavity catches up, and the Doctor grabs an axe to defend himself. McCavity is interrupted by Kevin, who says this is his job. Rose and Jimm catch up, and McCavity is convinced to call Kevin off.

The Doctor has each of them sealed into an engineering locker, and Kevin takes them outside the ship to the secondary control room. The Doctor has them turn everything back on that was shut down when the ship entered the zeg, and then they go back to their own ship. They leave a Black Shadow parchment behind, and the Doctor tricks one of the robots into picking it up.

The steam powered ship starts to move, dragging Glint's ship deeper into the zeg with it. The Doctor directs everyone to the forward escape pod, and the systems on the pirate ship start to explode. As it comes apart, McCavity again demands that the Resurrection Casket be opened, and when the Doctor refuses, sets Kevin on him again.

While the Doctor and Kevin dodge each other around the TARDIS, Sally appears in the airlock. Rose opens the inner airlock door and lets her in. The Doctor shakes hands with Jimm, then with Kevin, and then Jimm launches himself at McCavity, taking the medallion in the process. The Doctor uses his psychic paper to make McCavity think he still has the Black Shadow, and then Kevin goes after McCavity, who now has the Black Shadow in his pocket. McCavity opens the Resurrection Casket, and it is empty. As Kevin reaches for him, he falls into it and the lid closes.

Over by the airlock door, Sally has Rose by the throat. Rose tricks her and escapes, and then the Doctor holds her captive with the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor explains that Uncle Bobb was Robbie the cabin boy, Jimm is Hamlek Glint, and the model of the Lost Treasure is actually the real thing.

They put Sally in an escape pod, but she tries to catch them and manages to get herself killed. Jimm gives Kevin the medallion, which sets him free. They open the Resurrection Casket, and find a baby Drel McCavity. Uncle Bobb finds Jimm before he gets back to Starfall, and the Doctor and Rose leave in the TARDIS before the zeg can cause problems for them again.

Bored of spring cleaning, Mole leaves his underground home and goes goes for a walk in the countryside. He soon comes to the river where he meets and befriends Ratty, who lives on the riverbank. Ratty is eager for Mole to have new experiences and takes him on a journey down the river in his boat. While having a picnic, they notice Badger in the undergrowth. Rat invites him to join them, but he coldly declines and leaves the scene. Ratty reflects that Badger is affable but reclusive, not caring for society and social events. Mole asks where he lives, and Ratty explains that Badger's domain, the Wild Wood, is not a safe place for animals such as themselves. Mole asks what kind of creatures live there that make it so dangerous, but is interrupted by the arrival of the Chief Weasel and his henchman. While the Chief distracts them with pleasantries, his henchman steals a jar of potted meat. Ratty then warns Mole that, though the weasels might seem "all right in a way", they are not to be trusted. He then takes Mole to visit Toad at his grand residence, Toad Hall. Toad invites them to join him on a road trip in his latest source of amusement, a garishly-decorated gypsy caravan, with his horse Alfred pulling the vehicle. On the group's first camp out for the night, Ratty quietly reminisces about his home on the river, but declines Mole's suggestion that they return. The following day, disaster strikes as a passing motorcar spooks Alfred and sends the caravan careering into a ditch. Toad impulsively decides that motor cars are his calling in life, and he derides the "nasty, common, canary-coloured cart" as antiquated, proclaiming that motorcars are the only way to travel. Ratty and Mole can do nothing but look on as Toad buys and quickly crashes his cars one after another. Summer and autumn go by, and by winter, Ratty and Mole have had enough and decide to call on Badger to see if he can curb Toad's enthusiasm for reckless driving. Ratty says it's too late in the day to go to the Wild Wood, so Mole sets out alone to find Badger after Rat falls asleep in front of the fire.

Mole reaches the border of the Wild Wood and encounters a weasel on the road. Forgetting Ratty’s advice never to trust the weasels, he asks for directions to Badger's house and is sent the wrong way. As night falls, he becomes lost and confused by the strange sights and sounds of the woods. The weasels begin stalking him, and the terrified Mole stumbles over tree roots in his desperation to get away. Lying exhausted in the snow, he calls out for Ratty, who is awakened by the crackling fire back at the riverbank. He reads a note left by Mole, explaining where he has gone. Fearing the worst, Ratty takes a brace of pistols and a cudgel and bravely enters into the Wild Wood. After some time searching, he finds a weakened Mole, who has literally stumbled across Badger's house, having tripped on Badger's door scraper buried in the snow. Initially angry at being disturbed, Badger is pleasantly surprised to see that it's Ratty and Mole. He invites them inside and they warm themselves by the fire, discussing Toad's incorrigible passion for frivolous driving. The next morning they visit Toad Hall and Badger interrogates Toad, but Toad still refuses to take their advice to stay away from motorcars. Confessing that Toad's obsession is worse than he feared, Badger has Toad locked in his bedroom, under close observation by Ratty and Mole. The next day, Toad feigns illness and asks Ratty to fetch a lawyer. Toad then escapes and flags down a passing motorist named Reggie, who continually mistakes him for a frog, and his wife Rosemary. Posing as a fellow motorist, Toad asks them to inspect his "flat crank shaft" and steals their car as soon as they step out of it. Speeding away down the road, he almost collides with a responding constable, who he calls "fat face" as he passes by. Meanwhile, Mole breaks down in tears after he catches the scent of his home on the breeze. Rat feels terrible for not having noticed the signs that Mole was homesick, and he insists that they return to Mole End for Christmas. Some young field mice come carol singing, and Rat and Mole invite them inside for Christmas dinner. When the field mice inform them that Toad has been arrested, the pair become consumed with guilt for their friend.

In the courtroom, the jury box is packed with weasels. The magistrate, Mrs. Carrington-Moss, sentences Toad to "twelve months for the theft, three years for furious driving, and fifteen years for the cheek," with another year added "for being green", a total of twenty years' incarceration. The jailer's daughter feels pity for Toad's unfair punishment and decides to help him escape by disguising him as a washerwoman. Toad uses the disguise to walk out of the prison gates and makes his way to a railway station, where he tricks the train driver into giving him a free ride home on the Train. However, it isn't long until another Train with the police, Reggie and Rosemary, Mrs. Carrington-Moss and the clerk are pursuing him. Toad's identity is discovered by the driver. Toad confesses the truth to the driver, who quickly slows his Train down a little. Toad immediately jumps off and he tumbles down the side of a hill and into a field. Toad then calls in at Ratty's house, where he is told by Mole that the weasels have attacked Badger, thrown him out of Toad Hall, and secured themselves inside. Toad is despondent, but Badger has a plan to take back Toad Hall via a secret tunnel, the existence of which was confided in Badger by Toad's late father. Mole, using Toad's washerwoman disguise and under the instruction of Badger, pays a visit to the weasels and tells them that they will be attacked by an army of bloodthirsty badgers, rats, and toads. The story is false, concocted by badger, but succeeds in destroying the morale of the enemy, as the Chief Weasel places most of his men at the gates and on the walls, which will make retaking Toad Hall from the inside easier. The following night, the friends sneak through the tunnel and surprise the weasels in the banqueting hall. Toad spends most of the battle swinging from the chandeliers, but eventually falls on the Chief Weasel, knocking him unconscious. After victory, Badger, Mole and Ratty settle down and look forward to a peaceful future, until Toad flies overhead in his new "Flying Machine" contraption. Toad's engine suddenly stalls and he crashes into the river. During the end credits, the river bankers are pulling Toad and his machine out of the river.

The novel is set around the fourteenth century in an alternate medieval France called Neustria (historically an early division of the Frankish kingdom). Overlapping the events of the previous novel, ''Gerfalcon'', it follows the fortunes of roguish protagonist Joris, his paramour, Red Anne, and Joris's illegitimate son Juhel.

Atthili Satthi Babu (Ravi Teja) is a rookie thief in Hyderabad, who is crazy about performing daredevil acts. Once, he meet Neeraja, who is in Hyderabad to attend a marriage, and they falls in love immediately. Satthi Babu tells her the truth about him being a thief and resolves to give up crime forever. But before that, he decides to swindle one last person for a large sum of money along with his uncle Duvva. He tricks a woman at a bus stand and flees with a trunk. This leads Satthi Babu to Neha, a young girl who was in the trunk instead of the wealth he thought was in the trunk, who thinks that Satthi Babu is her father. Flummoxed by what is happening, but forced to keep Neha with her as a police officer Inspector Mahanti keeps his eye on him.

Although he tries keeping Neha away from Neeraja's eyes, the latter finds out about Neha. Angry and hurt, Neeraja leaves for her place, leaving Satthi Babu heartbroken. Soon, unknown goons attack him, taking him to be Assistant commissioner of police, Vikram Singh Rathore IPS (Ravi Teja), Neha's real father. Rathore looks exactly like Satthi Babu, which had caused all the confusion. While many unknown people help Satthi Babu run to safety with Neha in his arms, he is soon surrounded by the goons. It is then that Rathore makes an appearance and saves the day killing every goon by himself, but he soon dies suffering from injuries.

The other policemen who had assisted the SP then inform Satthi Babu of the whole incident. In Chambal village of Devgarh, Madhya Pradesh, the slain, and corrupt local M. L. A. Bavuji, a borderline psychopath, engulfs the town with his political corruption, illegal activities, criminal nexus, rape, and money laundering. His son Munna indulges in abusing women and raping the wives of policemen. Rathore immediately arrests him but he (Munna) is released by stating that he is mentally insane with the help of Home Minister. Later at a party organised by Bavuji (even Home minister comes to the party), Munna humiliates the police by removing their clothes but was killed by Rathore (intelligently) when he was hung from a tree by the belt of a humiliated inspector. After a few days, Rathore was attacked by Bavuji's brother Titla on Holi, where he was stabbed from the back as well as shot in the head while trying to save a village child and was assumed to be dead. But he survives with a brain injury, although the goons assumed that he is dead. Effects of this brain injury are later visible, and these effects are diminished by water falling on his head.

After knowing the incidents, Satthi Babu then adopts Neha, who does not know that her real father is dead. Then Satthi Babu returns to Devgarh posing as Rathore, and heads to settle the scores with Bavuji. Duvva tells Neeraja the truth, and she forgives Satthi Babu. Satthi Babu, being a goon, handles Bavuji well with tricks. He sets the MLA's wine factory afire and makes the villagers rob his food store. In the ensuing fight, he single-handedly defeats all of Bavuji's men. In the end, he fights with Titla on a rope bridge. Satthi Babu ties and cuts the rope, and Titla falls to death. Satthi Babu marries Neeraja, and they leave for a new life with Neha and Duvva.

Ivan Moser (Lyle Alzado) is a serial killer who has been convicted of the rape, torture, and murder of 23 people. Moser is given the death penalty by electrocution. At his execution, he boasts of having killed 24 people. A power outage caused by a riot prevents the execution, but Moser receives a jolt of electricity before the power fails. The prison staff assumes that Moser is killed during the riot, but he manages to escape. The prison subsequently is abandoned. Moser lives within the abandoned prison with the assistance of his father, who had been employed as a guard. Eighteen months later, a film crew arrives at the prison to shoot an exploitation film entitled ''Death House Dollies''. They discover that Moser survived his electrocution due to an unusual genetic gift. The jolt of electrical energy made him "half-alive", leaving him in a feral state and granting him spontaneous regeneration.

The U.S. military is deployed to Africa to stop a South African invasion of Zaire's Shaba province. Captain George Taylor of the U.S. Army is leading an Apache gunship squadron, patrolling over Shaba province, when advanced South African gunships destroy it. After crashing (and mercy-killing) his fatally wounded gunner, he finds an abandoned Army camp, and forages supplies for a long trek, initially on foot, to the Zairean capital, Kinshasa. Along the way he learns that the attack on his squadron was part of a bigger South African offensive that had targeted U.S. forces in Zaire; South African commandos and Zairean guerrillas allied with the South Africans also destroy B-2 bombers at an airbase in Kinshasa. The American collapse was so swift that the U.S. President is only able to force a cease-fire (and South African withdrawal) by carrying out a nuclear strike on Pretoria, an action that had reaped heavy international condemnation. The EU disavows its original support for the U.S. operation while Japan uses the war as an excuse to launch a mercantilist trade war against America: it embargoes countries that continue to trade with the U.S., though continuing to sell its own products there.

Taylor is evacuated home to the U.S., but finds himself suffering from a new virus designated "Runciman's Disease" (RD), which leaves his face horribly scarred. Many returning U.S. soldiers are similarly infected; it spreads around the worldwide in a global pandemic. Japan puts its Home Islands under quarantine, with Okinawa being used exclusively for international trade. A nuclear war in the Middle East, some time after the Shaba disaster, destroys Israel.

In 2008, Taylor leads a U.S. Army unit into Los Angeles, as the military is put on domestic deployment combating social unrest, and protecting delivery of basic services in the wake of the RD outbreak. Several years later, Taylor deploys with U.S. forces to Mexico, to eradicate a Japanese-supported revolutionary government that had won control; his disfigured face, and unique tactics, strike fear among the rebels.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, is on the brink of internal collapse in 2020, as its Central Asian republics ally with other Japanese-supported Islamic nations in conquering the country's resource-laden territory for Japan's benefit, and also conduct genocide against ethnic Russians. The United States reorganizes its military, and secretly deploys a combat unit — the 7th Heavy Cavalry Regiment (7HCR) — under by-then Colonel Taylor's command, spearheaded by the new M-100 assault gunship (which are equipped with an advanced railgun and Gatling cannons). The capture of an advanced Japanese AI interface enables the United States and Soviet Union to gain a better grasp of Japanese command-and-control abilities.

The U.S. military command orders the open deployment of the 7HCR to strike a blow deep into the heart of the Arab Islamic Union lines in northern Kazakhstan, and help bolster Soviet defenses. The initial U.S. attacks on November 2, 2020, render heavy damage to the Islamic Union and their allied Iranian forces, especially when a repair depot in Karaganda is totally destroyed. Taylor's troops reposition to new deployment areas in the Ural river region, but a stray radio transmission gives the Japanese a clue to one assembly area near Orsk. The information prompts the Japanese to target it with the Scramblers, a special radiowave weapon that permanently disrupts the body's neuro-muscular functions while leaving the brain intact. When Taylor discovers the area, he is appalled at the weapon's effects; General Noburu Kabata, the Japanese theater commander, is horrified that the weapon was used over his objections.

The fallout from the Scramblers' deployment shocks the U.S. government, which proposes negotiating a ceasefire. Taylor proposes leading all his remaining forces into a surgical strike at the Japanese headquarters in Baku, with logistical support from the Soviets. However, on November 4, the Soviets turn on the Americans as they gather at the last jump-off point north of the Caspian Sea; Taylor's forces escape the trap and head for the Japanese headquarters, which is itself under siege from Azeri militants. Despite a withdrawal order from Washington, the U.S. troops storm the command center and Taylor kills Kabata, while a U.S. technician uses the center's advanced supercomputer to disable Japan's space defenses and other in-theater assets. Japanese relief columns arrive at the base and Taylor dies staying behind to shut down the computer, while the rest of his men fly to Turkey.

The epilogue shows that the attack led to a peace treaty signed between the USSR and its enemies. The 7HCR is commended by presidential order, with all survivors promoted, but some of Taylor's men voluntarily reassign to other units out of dissatisfaction with its new pompous commanding officer.

The honourable Penelope Townes is a 13-year old aristocrat from England who lives with her widowed mother, Lady Diana, with their housekeeper Miss Mossop at Townes Hall. Townes is a stately but crumbling mansion in Wilshire, England.

Penelope comes into possession of an opal pendant when she explores the dusty attic of her family's decaying mansion. The opal contains two Australian genies, ''Bruce'' and his son ''Baz'', who have been living inside the opal for 130 years since Penelope's great, great-grandfather, Sir Claude, brought them to England. This is the setting for a battle of wits and a clash of class and culture. Penelope is a selfish snob who sees the Genie as her property and has the power. Bruce, the Genie is an ocker and has the magic.

So when Penelope – in an ungarded moment – wishes she were somewhere else, Bruce whisks her overseas, to her inheritance, Townes Downs, a rundown property in the middle of 800 square kilometres of Australian outback. Penelope hates Australia and is constantly trying to get back to Townes Hall in Wiltshire. Bruce thinks Townes Downs is heaven on earth and Townes Hall is hell.

Typically, an episode revolved around the consequences of one of Penelope's flippant wishes, or the efforts of an outside party to steal the opal (and thus, the genies).

When Penelope inherits a property in Australia (Townes Downs), Bruce and Baz are very happy because it means that they can spend more time in their own country. When they go to inspect the property, they meet Otto von Meister, who runs tours of outback Australia. His forefather stole the opal from the Aboriginal peoples and then lost it in a card game to Penelope's ancestor, Sir Claude. Otto is determined to return the opal to its rightful owner – him! When he finds out that Penelope has the opal, he tries to steal it from her. He often enlists his nephew, Conrad, to help him. Penelope falls in love with Conrad, which gives Otto far more opportunity to steal the opal. The battle for possession of the opal sees Otto become King of England and Bubbles lead his band of Merry Chaps in green to plot the end to King Otto's reign.

Things are further complicated when Bruce (the genie) falls in love with Penelope's mother, Lady Diana Townes. She is already supposedly in love with Lord 'Bubbles' Uppington-Smythe, however, it is revealed that this is only because of his money, and she in turn falls in love with Bruce.

In the end, Penelope accepts that Bruce and her mother are in love, and gives the opal to her mother, allowing Bruce to reveal his true identity. Bruce and Diana end up marrying.

Jade Li (Sandra Oh) is a feisty, 22-year-old Chinese-Canadian aspiring actress who lives at home with her traditional Chinese family: her strict father (Stephen Chang), her dutiful mother (Alannah Ong), and her sweet younger sister, Pearl (Frances You). Their older brother, Winston, has been disowned—a fate Jade is not eager to share, both for her own sake and to spare her family pain.

Her family tries to put on the perfect public persona at all costs so as to maintain their dignity as well as uphold their traditional Chinese values. One primary part of this persona is prosperity. Jade's father hopes that true financial prosperity will become reality through penny stocks. Jade, meanwhile, tries to achieve that happy medium between giving in to her parents' wishes and fulfilling her own needs and desires - double happiness. Therefore, although she manages to land a few bit parts on camera, Jade spends most of her time working in the shop owned by a family friend, performing the duties of a respectful daughter and suffering through arranged dates with prosperous young Chinese men (Including one who is gay.). An adept cultural chameleon, though, she also leads a double life, hanging out with best friend Lisa (Claudette Carracedo).

When her father's childhood friend arrives for a visit, Jade must juggle her competing identities even more carefully than usual, lest her choice of professions—and boyfriends—shame her father. Because of its instability, Jade's parents don't understand or widely publicize Jade's aspirations to be an actress. Their main want for Jade is to date and marry a nice Chinese boy, a goal for which Jade's extended family also strives as they are always trying to introduce her to Chinese boys. Initially, they believe that ''the'' boy is Andrew, with who Jade even agrees to go out. But Jade, beyond wanting to be an actress, wishes her family had more western sensibilities. She is attracted to a slightly awkward but persistent Caucasian English graduate student named Mark. Jade has to figure out how to both please her family, who would not approve of her dating a Caucasian, and be true to herself. Her older brother is already out of the picture for that very reason. Naturally, something must give sooner or later, and the facade of the perfect Chinese daughter soon begins to crumble.

The film is set in the late 1970s in Wielice, People's Republic of Poland. Factory worker Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr) is a nervous new father and a doting husband when he begins filming his daughter's first days with a newly acquired 8mm movie camera. He believes, as he tells his wife, that he now has everything he ever wanted since his youth as an orphan, but when the local Communist Party boss asks him to film a celebration event of the jubilee of his plant, his fascination with the possibilities of film begins to transform his life.

When they see his film, his superiors find his shot of a pigeon useless and his shots of several negotiators at a business meeting too probing. His boss suggests that Filip cut the shots of the entertainers being paid, the men going to the bathroom, and the business meeting. (He allows Filip to keep the pigeons as long as the shot of entertainers being paid is taken out.) He submits the film to a festival and gains third prize, effectively second prize because the festival did not award a first prize, feeling that no work was deserving. He is given an award as an incentive to keep filming. He starts to neglect his responsibilities to his family as his attention fixes on Anna Wlodarczyk, an attractive, self-described "amatorka" who encourages Filip's filmmaking, on the activities he films, and on the world of cinephiles.

The Kraków TV station airs Filip's film about a dwarf working at the factory and another about misallocated town renovation funds. Filip's boss reprimands him: work on the new nursery school will have to stop because of his exposé, and Stasio Osuch, the head of the works council and Filip's mentor, will lose his job. After that, Filip retrieves the canister for his as-yet undeveloped film about the brickyard, which he has learned is not operating due to lack of materials, with the workers being secretly employed on other town projects, opens it and tosses the film out to be exposed to the light. Alone at home, his wife having left the relationship with their daughter due to his obsession with filming rather than his family, Filip now turns his 16mm camera on himself.

Fritz Brown is a disgraced former LAPD officer now working as a private investigator, part-time repo man and struggling on-the-wagon ex-alcoholic. Fritz is hired by an obese caddy named Freddy 'Fat Dog' Baker, supposedly to keep tabs on Fat Dog's sister, Jane. In the course of his investigation, Fritz learns that Jane is indeed living with an elderly millionaire named Solly Kupferman, and that their relationship is odd at best.

Fritz follows Solly and witnesses a transaction between Solly and Cathcart, the Internal Affairs Chief who disgraced Fritz and had him expelled from the police force Brown suspects Fat Dog of being an arsonist and discovers that Kupferman owned Club Utopia through a proxy. Brown, thinking there might be a connection between the two men, decides to look for Fat Dog, who has disappeared and force him to confess but finds him dead in Mexico instead. He has been killed by Richard Ralston, with whom Fat Dog had started an illegal trade in social welfare benefits. Ralston failed to find a notebook where Fat Dog had meticulously noted their illegal transactions.

Fritz soon finds himself involved in a complicated set of circumstances involving crooks, hit men, corrupt police and murder.

The novel is set around the fourteenth century in an alternate medieval France called Neustria (historically an early division of the Frankish kingdom). Raoul, the young heir to the barony of Marckmont (described as "a blend of elf and owl and boy") grows up to become a sensitive, intelligent young man who prefers reading and song to the so-called knightly virtues of war and slaughter. At seventeen, he takes off on his own and thus begin a series of adventures that will both test and mature him. Along the way, he falls in love, survives attempted murder, saves Red Anne (Mistress of the Witches' Coven of the Singing Stones), and is forced to join the household of the brigand Count Lorin de Campscapel, Red Anne's lover. Raoul's life at the Campscapel's castle is one of constant danger. Only after many more thrilling incidents does he finally comes into his inheritance.

The novel is set around the 14th century in an alternate medieval France called Neustria (historically an early division of the Frankish kingdom). Yolande, whose estate has been wrested from her by her forced marriage to the depraved Balthasar, schemes to recover her independence with the aid of her admirers, Diomede and Lioncel.

Diego Montes (Nacho Martínez) is a former bullfighter who was forced into early retirement after being gored. He finds sexual gratification by viewing slasher films. Among the students in his bullfighting class is Ángel, a diffident young man who suffers from vertigo. During one episode of vertigo in the practice ring, Ángel has a vision of a woman killing a man with a hairpin during sex, in a manner similar to how a matador kills a bull. After class, Diego asks Ángel if he is homosexual, noting that he is not experienced with women. Ángel says he is not and vows to prove himself. Later that day, Ángel rapes his neighbour Eva (Eva Cobo), who is also Diego's girlfriend. As she leaves him, she trips in the mud and gashes her cheek. At the sight of her blood, Ángel faints.

The next day, Ángel's mother insists that he go to church as a condition of living in her home. After mass, she insists that he go to confession. He instead goes to the police station to confess to the rape. When Eva is brought to the station, she says he ejaculated before penetrating her and declines to press charges. Alone with the police detective (Eusebio Poncela), Ángel notices photos of dead men with the same wound administered by the woman seen during his earlier spell of vertigo. He confesses to having killed them. The detective then asks about two missing women, who were also students of Diego, and Ángel confesses to killing them as well.

Although Ángel is able to lead the police to the two women's bodies buried outside Diego's home, the detective is not convinced. He questions how Ángel could have buried them there without Diego's knowledge, finds that Ángel has an alibi for the murder of one of the men, and discovers that he faints at the sight of blood. Meanwhile, Ángel's lawyer, María Cardenal (Assumpta Serna) the woman from Ángel's dream suspects that Diego killed the two women. She takes him to a remote house where she has collected memorabilia related to Diego since she first saw him kill a bull. At Diego's home, Eva overhears the two and realizes that they are the killers. When María leaves, Eva tells Diego he has to take her back since she knows everything. Eva then goes to María to tell her to stay away from Diego, since Eva knows her secrets. María's reaction does not reassure Eva, and she goes to the police.

While Eva is telling the detective what she has heard, Ángel's psychiatrist (Carmen Maura) calls the detective to tell him that Ángel has seen Diego and María in a vertigo trance, and that they are in danger. Ángel is able to guide them to María's house. Just as the police, Ángel, Eva, and the psychiatrist arrive, an eclipse begins and they hear a gunshot. María has stabbed Diego between the shoulder blades and shot herself in the mouth as they were making love. Viewing the scene, the detective says that it is better this way and that he has never seen anyone happier.

Most of the story is told in flashbacks from the opening scene to Emily's childhood and adult life.

The movie opens with Emily (Kyra Sedgwick) singing to her 6-year-old son in a car while attempting to teach him the hand positions on a car steering wheel. During this time the scene keeps cutting back and forth to Emily packing a child’s suitcase. In the car she tells him that they are about to leave on a journey to an amazing land.

The scene changes and travels to eight and a half years earlier, during which Emily narrates her story on how she conceived her son Paul. She believed that she had only one purpose, to bring life to this earth. After unsuccessful artificial inseminations, she set out seeking numerous sexual encounters with random men all over the country. She theorized that multiple men meant no father, and she wanted it that way. However, after 10 weeks of pregnancy, she begins to bleed at an airport, losing her child and her hope of ever having a baby. Retreating into a state of depression she takes sanctuary at a hotel during a business seminar, where she meets a man named Paul (Campbell Scott). They immediately connect and have a passionate night which results in Emily’s second pregnancy.

She buys a house and gives birth to a boy, whom she named Paul, after his father. She spends every waking moment with Paul, reading books to him and searching for buried treasure. She playfully nicknames him Loverboy and he calls her Miss Darling. As he gets older he sees other children going to school and he questions Emily why he was not going too. She tries to keep him away from other children as the means to protect him but as the days go by he becomes increasingly difficult as he attempts to get to school and have fun.

When she finally succumbs to his requests and lets him go to school, she begins to experience separation anxiety; she constantly tries to pull him out of school and Paul, not appreciating this, runs away. When the staff tries to calm Emily, she breaks down stating that her child is exceptional and school is diminishing his potential.

Back in opening scene in the car, Paul loses his first tooth and Emily makes him sleep in the car, after which she takes a bottle of pills and falls asleep with the car engine running. Emily had blocked the garage door with rags as an attempt to suffocate her and Paul believing that this was the only way they could be forever together.

In the morning the boy who mows the lawn finds Paul and he survives. Emily, however, does not.

In the end, Paul is older and in a field with his girlfriend whispering into the ears of the sheep just as he and his mother used to do.

Five paramilitary mercenaries and war criminals—Corbin, Curry, Jack, Roxanne, and Bert—steal three million dollars from Camp Pendleton and take two hostages: Al, a pilot, and his teenaged daughter, Kellie. As they fly toward Mexico, Bert steals the loot and parachutes into a dark field. Corbin and Jack parachute after him. Upon landing, Bert's parachute gets caught in a tree, and, after untangling himself, he finds a scarecrow alongside several graves. In the distance he notices an abandoned farmhouse. Bert flees in a truck parked at the house, driving down a desolate road and retrieving the loot. As the others attempt to track him from the plane, the truck breaks down. Bert finds the truck mysteriously does not have an engine. He attempts to flee on foot with the trunk of loot. He finds himself in a grove of scarecrows, and is stabbed to death by one that supernaturally animates.

After landing the plane, Curry, Roxanne, and Kellie arrive at the house, and find Corbin and Jack inside. From the roof of the house, Curry spots the loot near three crosses in the distance; the scarecrows that were there have disappeared. Roxanne stays behind at the house with Kellie while Jack, Curry, and Corbin venture into the field to find the loot. They locate the truck Bert escaped in, and find a scarecrow in the driver's seat. Nearby, they locate Bert's parachute bag hanging from the tree, and upon attempting to open it, find it filled with blood.

Back at the house, the men are confronted by Bert, and Curry begins punching him. In the midst of the fight, they discover Bert's abdomen has been eviscerated, his body stuffed with dollar bills, though he is still seemingly alive. Curry and Roxanne shoot Bert numerous times, but the bullets prove ineffective. Corbin finally decapitates him, apparently killing him. Kellie flees into the field in the melee, and finds her father's eviscerated body hung from a scarecrow post with barbwire. Corbin retrieves her, bringing her back to the house, where Jack and Roxanne are extracting the wadded cash stuffed in Bert's hollowed-out corpse. Corbin tells them Al is dead, and Kellie slaps Roxanne in the face, chastising all of them for her father's death.

Jack notices that more dollar bills have blown into the field near the house, and the group rush outside to retrieve what money they can. While in a remote part of the field, Jack is killed by one of the scarecrows, which dismembers him with a handsaw before stabbing him in the face. While searching for Jack, Curry finds three scarecrows in the field, but they disappear. Curry becomes convinced that the scarecrows are possessed by the spirits of three deceased Satanist farmers—Jakob, Benjamin, and Norman Fowler—whose photograph hangs inside the farmhouse.

Roxanne, Corbin, and Kellie decide to leave, but Curry stays behind, refusing to depart without Jack. The three become separated in the field, and, while attempting to recoup loose dollar bills on the ground, Roxanne is viciously killed by one of the scarecrows. Corbin shoots a scarecrow that nearly attacks Kellie, and the two flee to the plane. Corbin is stabbed in the leg while attempting to crawl beneath a fence, but Kellie shoots two of the scarecrows before they can kill him. Back at the house, Curry finds Bert's severed head and limbs have reanimated, and is subsequently confronted by a grossly disfigured Jack, who stabs him to death.

Kellie flies the plane out of the field with Corbin. Once in the air, Corbin is stabbed by a repossessed Al, who covertly boarded the plane. The repossessed Al goes after Kellie and stabs her through the wrist. Corbin has managed to get back, and the two begin to fight, and Corbin explodes a grenade, killing them both. Voice-over narration from a morning news broadcast imparts that the plane was found landed near San Diego, with the charred remains of two individuals, and Kellie, in a shocked state.

A failed, recluse director, Max, moves from New York City to a small seaside town after his wife's death. He struggles with his parental role over his son. Eddie, meanwhile, is becoming increasingly involved in the not-so-underground culture of drugs, promiscuous sex, and gang violence that lies there.

The chasm between them seems to be growing despite Max's best efforts. Max jogs in the mornings and routinely passes a psychic. She spontaneously predicts that one night a serial killer will attack Eddie on the beach. Eddie is sampling various drugs with his friend, Smiley, and having unprotected sex. He ignores the advice of his father as a rule and seems beyond hope of redemption in the eyes of mainstream society. He shows potential for betterment when he prevents the murder of a rival gang member. Max saves Eddie from the serial killer.

Ting-yin, a young novelist, is struggling to come up with a follow-up to her best-selling trilogy of romance novels. She has not even started on the book yet and her agent has already announced that the next title, ''The Recycle'', will deal with the supernatural.

After drafting her first chapter, she stops and deletes the file from her computer. She then starts seeing strange, unexplainable things and finds that she is experiencing the supernatural events that she described in her novel-to-be.

The hero, Gösta Berling, is a defrocked Lutheran priest who has been saved by the Mistress of Ekeby from freezing to death and thereupon becomes one of her pensioners in the manor at Ekeby. As the pensioners finally get power in their own hands, they manage the property as they themselves see fit and their lives are filled with many wild adventures. Gösta Berling is their leading spirit, the poet, the charming personality among a band of revelers. Before the story ends, Gösta Berling is redeemed, and even the old Mistress of Ekeby is permitted to come to her old home to die.

In rural Michigan in 1991, Marie Harris (Neve Campbell) delivers the eulogy at the funeral of her father Chuck (David Alpay), a U.S. Army Air Force veteran who had fought in World War II. The church is full of veterans who knew and loved him. Her mother Ethel Ann (Shirley MacLaine) is sitting out on the church porch, smoking and nursing a hangover.

Ethel Ann is totally indifferent about Chuck's death, which only her friend Jack Etty (Christopher Plummer) seems to understand. Marie is furious with her mother and with her implication that she slept with many of the veterans when they were all young, but then Ethel relents and says that she was always faithful. It quickly emerges that there is a lot Marie does not know about her mother's past and the true story of her love life.

A young Ethel Ann (Mischa Barton) was in love with young farmer, Teddy Gordon (Stephen Amell), who builds a house with his best friends Jack and Chuck. Her parents think she is dating "good old reliable" Chuck (all three are in love with her), but within days of the Pearl Harbor attack, she has accepted Teddy's gold ring and unofficially married him – with Jack and Chuck as witnesses. The three young men fly out the next day. Teddy and Jack are stationed at RAF Langford Lodge near Belfast, where Jack eventually plans to propose to Eleanor (Kirsty Stuart), an Irish tart.

Jimmy Riley (Martin McCann), Eleanor's young adult grandson, is in 1991 Belfast when he encounters local elder Michael Quinlan (Pete Postlethwaite), who is digging for wreckage of a crashed B-17 aircraft on nearby Black Mountain. Jimmy finds a ring at the site, becoming determined to return it to the woman from the "Ethel & Teddy" inscription. The U.S. VA identify an Ethel that crash victim Teddy Gordon left his belongings to.

Inadvertently caught up in The Troubles, Jimmy flees Belfast, travelling to Michigan to give Ethel the ring. She reveals a wall covered in souvenirs of Teddy, which Jack and Chuck boarded up for her shortly after his death in June 1944. Marie is shocked and furious to learn that her mother still mourns for him, finally understanding why Ethel shut out Marie and Chuck. Jack later tells her the full story, including his own three failed marriages (his son, Pete (Allan Hawco), soon realizes Jack always loved Ethel), her refusal to leave the house Teddy built for her, and her taking ten years to marry Chuck.

Ethel Ann travels to Belfast with Jimmy. As she holds the hand of a British soldier killed in an IRA car-bomb attack, Quinlan confesses to Ethel Ann that he, as a teenager, was on Black Mountain when Teddy died. Teddy made him promise to give her the ring and tell her she must be free to make her own choice in love. A tearful Quinlan tells her he should have reached out to her back then, and that he spent 50 years looking for the ring that was lost in the final blast that killed Teddy, regretfully (now) thinking she needed it as much as she needed his dying words.

Joining Ethel in Belfast, Jack finally admits that he has always loved her. She is finally able to cry and properly grieve for Teddy. She and Jack embrace lovingly, completing her sweep through Teddy and his two best friends.

Egghead (in a voice imitating radio comic Joe Penner), who is annoyed by a silhouetted man in the theater audience (Tedd Pierce) who refuses to sit down. After he sits down twice and finally gets shot by Egghead when he will not stay down, out comes Daffy Duck biting his nose. While fighting, a tortoise (imitating radio comic Parkyakarkus) comes and tries to give Daffy and Egghead new weapons. When the tortoise goes away, Egghead uses his real gun and Daffy tries to make him shoot the apple on his head. Egghead misses every time, so Daffy puts a blind sign, a cup of pencils, and disguise glasses on Egghead. Daffy then sings a song (considered semi-obligatory for a Merrie Melodies cartoon at the time), and when he concludes, his own reflection in the water surfaces in three dimension and shakes his hand before they swim away together.

Later, Egghead finally manages to capture Daffy by shooting a pair of gloves from his gun, knocking Daffy out and allowing Egghead to place him in a net. Just as Egghead celebrates, a duck from the mental ward (seemingly his reflective doppelgänger from the earlier scene) comes to claim Daffy. He thanks Egghead for helping to catch Daffy, and tells him that Daffy is 100 percent nuts. "Yeah?", Egghead asks. "Yeah!", answers the duck warden. At that moment, both he and Daffy beat Egghead up before woohoo-ing out into the distance. Egghead becomes fed up with the antics and decides to join them as the cartoon ends.

Edmond Burke is a middle-aged New York City businessman who visits a tarot fortune teller on the way home. The fortune teller looks at the cards concerning Edmond with a shocked expression and, a little startled, she says to him: "you are not where you belong". He decides to make changes in his life, beginning by leaving his wife. At a bar, Edmond tells a fellow patron that he has not had sex in a while and that marriage took away his masculinity. The man gives him the address to a strip club, where Edmond is kicked out by a bouncer for not paying for a stripper's drink. Now even more sexually frustrated, Edmond goes to a peep show; having never been to such a place before, he is disappointed when he realizes that he is not allowed to have actual sex with the performer.

Next he goes to a white-collar bordello, but cannot afford a hooker. Edmond needs money, so he plays a three-card Monte game with a street dealer. When Edmond accuses the dealer of cheating, the dealer and his shill beat him up and steal his money. Edmond becomes enraged by what he sees as the contempt, prejudice and greed of society. He pawns his wedding ring in exchange for a knife. He is approached by a pimp who offers Edmond a "clean girl" and lures him to an alleyway, where the pimp attempts to mug him. In a wild rage, Edmond attacks the pimp with his knife while hurling racial slurs at him. He leaves him wounded and possibly dying in the alley.

Suddenly euphoric, Edmond enters a coffee shop and tells a young waitress, Glenna, his newfound worldview of instant gratification. They end up having sex at her apartment. Glenna likes him at first, but she is soon frightened by his increasingly erratic behavior and calls for help. An enraged Edmond slashes her to death, blaming her own insecurity for her murder. On a subway train, he has an angry confrontation with a female passenger. Edmond comes across a church service where a minister preaches about respect and faith. Edmond feels the urge to preach about his own experiences, and as he stands in the doorway of the church, the woman from the subway recognizes him and calls into the street for the police. The responding officer pats Edmond down to find the knife in his front jacket pocket. Edmond is arrested.

In jail, Edmond begins to appreciate the security of his old life, but it is too late; the police have reason to believe that the knife found in Edmond's pocket may be the weapon used in Glenna's murder. The interrogating officer bluntly asks Edmond why he killed Glenna, to Edmond's shock and disbelief. He is sent to prison for her murder. There, Edmond is paired with a black cellmate. He likes prison because it is simple. He speaks of how he has always feared black people, but now that he shares a room with one, he can finally feel a bond. The indifferent cellmate then forces Edmond to perform oral sex on him. Edmond tells a prison minister what happened, but goes off on a tangent, shouting that God has been unfair to him. When the minister asks why he murdered the waitress, he has no answer.

Years pass. Edmond has cut connections with the outside world, refusing to see visitors. He talks to his cellmate, with whom he has developed a relationship, about the human ego and how life should not be taken for granted. He concludes that by conquering his fears, he might lead a better life. Both men ponder the afterlife. Edmond then goes to sleep comfortably alongside his cellmate. True to the tarot fortune teller's words, Edmond might well have found the place where he belongs.

In French North Africa in 1943 large numbers of men from France's overseas possessions have been recruited into the French First Army of the Free French Forces to fight alongside the other Allies against Nazi Germany and liberate France from occupation. The army consists of two main elements: ''pieds-noirs'', that is people of mostly European descent, and ''indigènes'', those of mostly African descent. The "indigènes" in turn consist of three main groups: Algerians, Moroccans (known as ''goumiers)'', and troops from Sub-Sahara Africa.

Saïd, an impoverished goat herder, joins the 7th RTA (Régiment de Tirailleurs Algériens). With him are other Algerians including Messaoud, who wants to marry and settle in France, and the literate Corporal Abdelkader, who seeks equality with settlers for the indigenous people of his country. There are also two Moroccan brothers Yassir and Larbi, Yassir's aim being booty so that Larbi can afford to marry.

Soon the men, dressed in mostly lend-lease American uniforms meet Sergeant Martinez, a battle-hardened ''pied-noir'', who trains them before leading them on their first engagement against the Germans in Italy. Their mission is to capture a heavily-defended mountain, but it soon becomes clear that their French commanding officer is using them as cannon fodder to identify artillery targets. The colonial troops eventually succeed, at the cost of high casualties. When asked by a French war correspondent about his thoughts on the losses, the French colonel replies, "today was a great victory for the Free French Forces".

The troops of the 7th RTA next embark for Operation Dragoon, to liberate the south of France.[http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=160750 Days of Glory (2006) Channel 4 Film review], retrieved 2007-03-30 While aboard ship, a French cook refuses to give tomatoes to ''indigènes'' soldiers. Abdelkader calls for equality, but mutiny is averted when Martinez and the company captain promise that everyone will be treated the same.

On arrival at Marseille, the colonial troops are greeted as heroes. Messaoud meets and courts Irène, a French woman, promising when the regiment leaves that he will write and one day return. She says she'll wait for him and they will marry. However, due to censorship of soldiers' mail, Irène never learns Messaoud's fate.

Saïd becomes Martinez's orderly, for which the other soldiers call him "girlie" and imply he's gay. Eventually he snaps and holds a knife to Messaoud's throat. Abdelkader calms the situation, but Saïd makes it clear that in this segregated world the French authorities will not give their colonial soldiers anything. Having seen among Martinez's possessions a family photograph, while drinking with the sergeant Saïd mentions that the two of them are similar in both having an Arab mother. The NCO attacks him and threatens to kill him if he reveals this secret.

The colonial troops discover that, while they are not granted leave, French members of the Free French Forces are allowed trips home. Eventually the men are told they will be going home, but it's a ruse; instead, they are billeted behind the lines and given a ballet performance. Bored and disillusioned, most leave the tent and hold a meeting outside decrying the injustice. Martinez challenges the group, led by Abdelkader, and a fight starts.

Early next morning, French military police bring Messaoud to a temporary stockade where Abdelkader is also being held. Messaoud says he was arrested for trying to go back to Marseille and find Irène. Abdelkader is brought before the French colonel who tells him that he needs him to go on a special mission: to take ammunition to American troops fighting in the Lorraine Campaign and also be the first French troops to liberate Alsace. The French officer promises that Abdelkader and the other colonial soldiers will get the rewards and recognition that success in this operation will bring. Later, the white company captain tells the corporal that the colonel will keep his word.

As they cross the German lines, most of the men are killed by a booby trap, including Yassir's brother, and Martinez is severely injured. The survivors mostly want to go back, but Abdelkader rallies them to push on. Eventually the corporal, Saïd, Messaoud, Yassir and the wounded Martinez reach an Alsatian village. Over the next few days the soldiers ingratiate themselves into the area and Saïd befriends a milkmaid. When a unit of Germans arrives into the village, a battle breaks out. Messaoud is badly hurt by a Panzerschreck rocket and then shot by a German rifleman. Saïd attempts to evacuate Martinez, but they are both shot by the Panzerschreck, killing Saïd and further wounding Martinez, who is quickly finished off. Abdelkader and Yassir attempt to flee, but Yassir is shot in the back by a German. However, just as the corporal is cornered, more colonial troops arrive and drive the Germans out of the village.

As columns of Free French forces begin to move through the area, Abdelkader sees the colonel passing in his jeep, but the French commanding officer ignores him and he is pulled away by a staff officer who asks him where his unit is. When Abdelkader says they are all dead, he is simply assigned to another French NCO. As he walks out of the village, he passes a film cameraman filming only French troops standing by the liberated villagers. The villagers, however, applaud Abdelkader as he leaves.

The movie then moves to the present day. An elderly Abdelkader goes to a war cemetery in Alsace to visit the graves of his comrades: Martinez, Larbi, Saïd, Yassir and Messaoud. He then returns to his small rundown flat in modern-day France. The film concludes with the caption that from 1959 pensions for servicemen from France's overseas possessions living in France enjoyed no increases after the date their country of origin became independent.

Jeffrey Nicolas Grant (River Phoenix), a brash hyperactive high school student, lives in a San Diego suburb with his parents, who own a successful garden center. Keen to fly, he has applied for entry to the Air Force Academy.

During a routine background check on Jeff, FBI agent Roy Parmenter (Poitier) finds contradictory information on his parents, making him suspect that all is not as it should be. Further investigations reveal that they may be sleeper agents for the Soviet Union with a teenaged son.

Unable to arrest them as they have not done anything illegal, Roy continues his investigation, moves into the house across the street from the Grant family, and worms his way into their confidence.

He eventually confronts Jeff with his suspicions and seeks Jeff's cooperation to learn more about his parents. Initially unbelieving, Jeff is soon forced to accept the facts and discovers that even his name is fictitious and that his real name is Nikita.

Roy confides to Jeff that twenty years earlier, his partner was killed by a Soviet agent, known only as 'Scuba' (Richard Lynch), and that he is still at large. 'Scuba' is now a rogue agent, killing KGB agents one by one, including "sleepers". Meanwhile, a Soviet spy-catcher, Konstantin Karpov (Richard Bradford), has been sent from the Soviet embassy in Mexico City to 'reel in' Scuba.

Jeff is captured and held as a hostage at gunpoint by Karpov, as he and 'Scuba' make their way to the Mexican border on the San Diego Trolley. Roy has also confronted them and is holding Karpov at gunpoint. At the border, the situation resolves itself; Karpov and 'Scuba' cross into Mexico, and the Grant family remain in the United States.

The novel contains a series of six short stories about two high school students: beginning with a boy called 'Boku (I)' who remains unnamed until late in the story, and a girl named Yoru Morino. Both of them are strongly attracted to the dark side of human beings. Two of them strangely encounter and become involved in a bizarre case.

• ''' ''' - Morino finds a diary written by a serial killer. Since it describes a third victim that has yet to be discovered, Morino shows it to a classmate called "Boku", who is a protagonist/narrator of this story. They then encounter a victim themselves.
• ''' ''' - There have been horrible incidents of animals and humans were cut off their hands and stolen. ‘Boku’ identifies the culprit, coming up with a plan to catch.
• ''' ''' - The narrator investigates a series of dog kidnappings after his sister discovers a pit filled with their bodies. He finally managed to find out a scene of the crime.
• ''' ''' - Morino faces trouble sleeping, and is looking for a rope to put around her neck in the belief the right rope will help her sleep.
• ''' ''' - Saeki spends all his free time gardening, digging holes to try to control his obsession with burying people alive. He killed a young neighbor boy, drowning him in his coffin. Now he snatched another female victim and put her in a coffin.
• ''' ''' - There was a murder in an abandoned hospital. A few weeks later, a mysterious high school boy gives victim's younger sister a message from the victim, recorded just before she was murdered.

Mister Johnson, a Nigerian who has adopted the style of the British colonialists, works as an assistant to the colonialist judge Harry Rudbeck. He marries Bamu in a Christian marriage ceremony and offers to share his "wealth" and "civilized" life with her, though she continues to behave according to her traditional Nigerian role as a wife instead of like an Englishwoman. Waziri offers to pay Johnson to show him government letters from Rudbeck's office, but Johnson refuses out of loyalty to England. Johnson owes money to several people but Rudbeck is unwilling to give him an advance, and Bamu returns to her family's home because Johnson cannot pay the monthly bridal payment. Johnson accepts money from Waziri in exchange for stealing letters from Rudbeck's office that describe Waziri as a plotting liar.

Rudbeck runs out of money for a 100-mile road he is building to the North Road, a major trade route, and Johnson suggests taking money designated for other government projects and using it for the road instead. Rudbeck's wife Celia arrives and is dismayed by the accommodations and food. The treasurer Mister Tring arrives and identifies anomalies in the cash book, so he fires Johnson and stops work on the road. Johnson begins working at colonialist merchant Sargy Gollup's store with Benjamin and attempts to make profitable trades himself, but his activities cause Sargy to punch him. Benjamin catches Johnson stealing an advance from Sargy's cash box, which Johnson uses to hold a party. He invites the people inside Sargy's store when it starts to rain, despite Benjamin's objections. Sargy returns and punches Johnson, but Johnson fights back and knocks him out. Rudbeck comes to investigate but Sargy says that it was an accident. He gives Johnson one month's advance pay and fires him.

Johnson and Bamu wander looking for work with their newborn son and when the rainy seasons ends work commences on the road again and Rudbeck gives Johnson a job there as a supervisor. Productivity increases but money runs out and construction stops. Johnson tells locals that there is a prize of five pounds to the group that clears the most bush, to be paid to the chief, and work commences again. The workers reach the North Road and a new trade route is established but Rudbeck discovers that Johnson is charging a road fee. He confronts Johnson, who insists that he was only borrowing a little, and forces him to leave instead of having him arrested.

Johnson, Bamu, and their son return to the Zungo, where Bamu's family insists that she return home to them. Johnson asks Waziri for money but Waziri orders his guards to cripple Johnson. Johnson escapes through a window but finds that his wife has already left. He gets drunk and sneaks into Sargy Gollup's store to steal money from the cash box but Sargy catches him and fires his rifle at him. The two fight and Johnson kills Sargy by stabbing him with a pin used to hold receipts. Waziri is ordered by the chief to either find Johnson or someone else to take the blame. Johnson visits his wife to ask for food, where her brother clubs him and turns him in to the authorities. In jail, Waziri's former assistant convinces Johnson to give him his English shoes since he will be hanged soon. After his conviction, Johnson begs Rudbeck to shoot him in order to spare him from hanging. The next morning, Johnson once again begs Rudbeck to shoot him, or at least hang him by his own hand as he considered Rudbeck his friend. After Johnson sang a song about fear, Rudbeck grabs a rifle and shoots Johnson, knowing fully well that this could have adverse impact on his career.

''Generation O!'' focuses on the character of Molly O, an 8-year-old rock star and the lead singer of the band "Generation O!" along with bassist Nub (an older British musician), guitarist Eddie (Molly's cousin), drummer Yo-Yo (a kangaroo), and manager Colonel Bob. Molly also spends time with her best friend Chadd, and tries to avoid her pesky brother Buzz.

Amanda Pierce (Monica Potter), a New York paintings conservator at The Met, has bad judgment in men, which becomes apparent when she finds her boyfriend cheating on her with a supermodel. She looks for a new apartment, and finds one with four struggling models: Jade (Shalom Harlow), Roxana (Ivana Miličević), Candi (Sarah O'Hare) and Holly (Tomiko Fraser).

When Amanda discovers that Jim Winston (Freddie Prinze Jr.), a guy she likes, lives in the apartment across from hers, she starts spying on him to try to find his flaw. One night she sees him kill a woman, Megan O'Brien (Tanja Reichert). However, she is the only witness; and when the police arrive, they find no evidence of the crime.

Annoyed by the police's lack of effort, Amanda and her new friends investigate Jim on their own. When Amanda confronts him, he turns out to be an undercover FBI agent, Bob Smoot, who was trying to gain a suspect's trust by staging his partner Megan's death. Amanda learns that Jim is investigating a Russian named Strukov (Jay Brazeau), who, under the alias of Halloran, has been smuggling money. He is also the client for whom Amanda has been privately restoring a painting.

Strukov captures Jim, Amanda and her roommates; but they escape when Roxana seduces their Russian guard. They discover Strukov is actually smuggling diamonds. They go to a fashion runway, take down Strukov, and receive special commendations from the FBI.

Jim asks Amanda if they can start over, but she refuses and he leaves. However, Amanda and Jim—going by his real name, Bob—"meet" again. He takes her up to his new apartment, from where they can see Amanda's model friends, who are obviously happy that things turned out so well for her.

A rather boring police officer named Officer Buckle is assigned to take a police dog named Gloria to his safety speech at the local school. Until that time, whenever Officer Buckle tried to tell schools about safety everyone fell asleep. Then, unbeknownst to Officer Buckle (literally, behind his back), Gloria does tricks imitating the safety tip demonstrating safety rules. Gloria is a big success! Officer Buckle enjoys the fame until he sees on a taped speech that the schoolchildren are so enthusiastic because of Gloria. He refuses to teach safety and a huge accident happens. A letter from an attentive and sweet girl, named Claire, convinces Officer Buckle to start teaching again. In the end, Officer Buckle and Gloria go to many schools and teach the students about safety together.

A group of sprite-like power engineers maintain and defend the lamp post HO32 which is the critical area of the entire Lighting Network. The Roons who live in the sewers below are the creatures who threaten the Lighting Network due to their strong dislike to the presence of light. Sewer rats can also prove to be a pest to the Lampies.

''La Cérémonie'' tells the story of a young woman, Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is hired as a maid by the Lelièvre family. The Lelièvres live in an isolated mansion in Brittany. The family consists of four members: Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) and Georges, the parents, who have no children together, but one each from previous marriages. Gilles is Catherine's and her ex-husband's son. He is a lonely teenager who loves reading and has a passion for arts in general. Melinda is Georges' and his late wife's daughter. She studies at a university and only spends the weekends at home, where she invites her boyfriend Jérémie. The household chores are excessive for Catherine – who owns her own art gallery – so she requires a maid's help and hires Sophie. Throughout the film Sophie avoids using the dishwasher, refuses to take driving lessons, buys fake eyeglasses, and has trouble giving a cashier the correct change. The viewer finds out later that Sophie is illiterate and has a history of violence since she is believed to have killed her disabled father, or at least not to have rescued him from the fire she might have set in his house.

Once in the small village, Sophie meets Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), the postmistress, who occasionally works in a charity and reads a lot. However, Jeanne proves to be a bad influence on the maid since she is jealous and aggressive towards a lot of people, including the Lelièvres, whose mail she vandalises. She also has a violent history: she was charged with the murder of her four-year-old daughter, but she was later acquitted. The two friends meet regularly either for a charity project (that they end up ruining) or for a film; television being Sophie's main pastime. Sophie is treated rather nicely at the Lelièvres, who mean well towards her, but their patronizing attitude and the affection they have for each other create a feeling of jealousy and frustration both in Sophie and in Jeanne. This frustration reaches its climax when Georges fires Sophie for attempting to blackmail Melinda, who found out about her illiteracy. It is what triggers the climax of the film, which sees Sophie and Jeanne seize Georges’ shotguns and murder the family who were watching an opera on television.

Jeanne leaves the crime scene and is killed in a car accident by the priest who had fired her from the charity she worked for. Sophie, for her part, walks away from the house after having wiped their fingerprints off the guns, making her way through the police squads at the accident. The end credits begin with the music of the opera that is being played back by a policeman on Melinda's tape-recorder, which Jeanne stole and put in her car. At the end of the credits, the gunshots can be heard on the tape and then the voices of Jeanne and Sophie, constituting evidence against them. Chabrol presents an ambiguous view of culture and class conflict in this film, which he jokingly called "the last Marxist film."

After returning from the 5th dimension, the diabolical alien tyrant named Bosc is bent on conquering the Planet Uranus with his own army and attempts to invade and destroy Earth as well. He is seeking to reign supreme for his power of the solar system that includes his alien army capturing and enslaving the Space Babes throughout the galaxy. Thus, Captain Blasto is the only hero who can foil him and his evil ambitions and set out to rescue the stranded Space Babes along the way. Blasto is also the only type of hero who doesn't mind catching Space Babes in distress every now and then, especially when it comes to exploring and venturing across through the Planet Uranus.

The novel is set in fifteenth century England and France. It concerns the adventures of an English squire and his friends, their taking part in the month-long Siege of Harfleur and the Battle of Agincourt, and its bitter consequences for all of them. It ends with a brief and unknowing meeting with the young Joan of Arc.

Although written for younger readers, it exhibits some of the high literary quality of the Neustrian trilogy.

While returning from an away mission, B'Elanna Torres encounters interference from an ion storm which results in a concussion. Commander Chakotay finds a Klingon artifact lodged inside Torres' shuttlecraft, and Torres sees this emitting blood and hears voices speaking in the Klingon language. Since the USS ''Voyager'' is stranded in the Delta Quadrant, the ship is several thousand light-years away from Klingon-controlled space. Morale officer Neelix plans a celebration of the discovery of the object, believing it originates from the Alpha Quadrant and thus proves ''Voyager'' is getting closer to home; Torres resists the proposal for a party. She consults with Security Chief Tuvok, who believes her negative response to the object stems from her hatred of her Klingon heritage. Tuvok assaults Torres with a Klingon weapon called a bat'leth, saying she is not a true Klingon before dismissing her as dishonored. While attending the festivities in the mess hall, Torres notices the Doctor and Seven of Nine singing Klingon drinking songs and Tom Paris eating Klingon cuisine. After witnessing several Klingon warriors killing the crew, she falls and finds herself aboard a boat. Torres discovers she is being transported to Gre'thor on the Barge of the Dead, and that her mother Miral was placed aboard as a dishonored soul.

Torres awakes to find she has been in a coma the entire time. She had almost died from the accident in the ion storm. Chakotay believes Torres' encounter with her mother was a hallucination prompted from her near-death experience, but she believes that it was real. Torres believes her mother is being punished because of her daughter's dishonor, saying that she must return to the Barge of the Dead to rescue her. Captain Kathryn Janeway permits Torres to put herself in an induced coma, with the Doctor monitoring the procedure. After being placed in a coma, Torres successfully returns to the barge. She reunites with her mother, but they argue about whether or not she has truly embraced Klingon spirituality. Miral responds by telling her she does not understand what it truly means to be a Klingon. After their conversation, Torres decides to take her mother's place on the barge; even though Miral resists the transference, she is allowed to move on to Sto-vo-kor (a version of the afterlife similar to the Norse Valhalla) while Torres is escorted into Gre'thor. She discovers that ''Voyager'' is her version of Gre'thor, and is confronted by alternate versions of the crew. Miral returns to explain that she cannot fully be released into Sto-vo-kor until Torres completes her journey. Tuvok attacks Torres again with a bat'leth, but she surrenders rather than fighting back. Miral identifies this as the first step in her path. She informs Torres that they will reunite either in Sto-vo-kor or when Torres returns home. Torres is resuscitated and embraced by Janeway.

On board a runabout, Odo and Kira are in pursuit of a member of the terrorist group known as the Maquis. They follow the Maquis vessel to a small moon. Landing, they find the vessel is empty, and split up to search for the pilot. After a short while, Odo returns to find Kira with her foot caught in an expanding crystal mass that Odo is unable to remove.

As Kira is slowly being covered by the crystal, dangerous seismic tremors increase in the surrounding rock; Kira insists that Odo abandon her and flee to safety. He attempts to free her using an ultrasonic generator, and tells her about his past as they wait for the crystal to shatter. When the generator fails to work, and Kira is nearly engulfed in the crystal, Odo confesses his love for Kira. To his surprise, she says she is in love with him too.

Suspicious of Kira's response, Odo points a phaser at her, demanding to know who she really is. Kira and the crystal suddenly morph into a Changeling, one of the Founders of the Dominion (Salome Jens), who reveals that she stole the Maquis ship in order to try to convince Odo to return to the Dominion. She reveals the real Kira's location and transports away. Odo finds Kira and tells her of the Founder, but not of his feelings for her.

Meanwhile, on Deep Space Nine, Nog attempts to convince Commander Sisko to endorse his application to attend Starfleet Academy. Sisko is doubtful and suspects Nog is engaging in some underhanded scheme, especially since Nog's request was accompanied by the customary bribe Ferengi culture expects when making such requests. To test Nog's resolve, he gives him the task of counting the inventory of a cargo bay. Nog completes the task quickly but Sisko still has doubts.

Sisko tells Nog that he will not give him a recommendation. Nog confesses that he wants to do it so that he does not end up like his father Rom (Max Grodénchik), whose engineering skills are not valued by Ferengi culture. Sisko, stunned by the young Ferengi's upstanding ambitions, agrees to recommend Nog to the academy.

When Nog tells Rom and his uncle Quark (Armin Shimerman) of his intention to join Starfleet, Quark adamantly forbids it; but Rom, in an uncharacteristic act of courage, stands up to his brother and proudly grants his permission for Nog to join Starfleet.

When Garak's shop explodes, Odo finds that it was destroyed by a bomb set up to make it look accidental. He tracks down a possible suspect but before he can catch up with him, the suspect is killed when his ship blows up.

Odo studies the case further and discovers evidence that the Romulans, a rival alien race, are behind it. They probably hired the dead suspect, and then killed him to help bury evidence. Odo digs up more information about the incident and finds that it is much more complicated than an assassination attempt on Garak. It seems the Romulans are planning to invade Cardassia and several members of the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian secret police, have been killed in mysterious mishaps recently.

Odo tries to get Garak to admit that he blew up his own shop in order to get Odo to begin an investigation. All of the Cardassians recently killed were close to Enabran Tain, Garak's Obsidian Order mentor. Now that all of his associates are being targeted, Tain may be in danger. Odo and Garak set off to locate him.

En route they are captured by a Romulan starship. When they are brought aboard they find Tain is there. He tells them he ordered Garak's assassination, as well as those of the rest of his former associates. He is wiping his history clean in preparation for a power play. The Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence agency, have formed an alliance with the Obsidian Order, and they are planning an attack on the Founders in the Gamma Quadrant. Once the Dominion is taken out, Tain plans to take control of the Obsidian Order. Since his attempt on Garak's life failed, he asks Garak to join him, and Garak immediately agrees.

Garak and Odo have not been heard from on Deep Space Nine in several days, following their departure in a runabout to investigate an attempt on Garak's life. The crew of Deep Space Nine is alarmed when a large Cardassian–Romulan fleet suddenly decloaks and flies through the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant. The fleet, under the command of Cardassian Enabran Tain and Romulan Colonel Lovok, aims to destroy the homeworld of Founders of the Dominion. Tain has offered Garak the opportunity to return from exile, and the two reminisce about their past together in the Obsidian Order.

Back on DS9, the senior staff view Tain's message laying out the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar's plans to cripple the Dominion. Vice Admiral Toddman admits that while the Federation doesn't condone the plan, they don't intend to stop it either and must simply hope they are successful but plan for the worst: he orders DS9 on full alert and the ''Defiant'' and its crew to remain at the station for its protection. Commander Sisko, refusing to abandon his crewmate, launches an unsanctioned mission to take the ''Defiant'' into the Gamma Quadrant to rescue Odo.

Tain instructs Garak to interrogate Odo for information about the Founders, using a device that inhibits his ability to shape-shift. Knowing that Tain will never trust him if he refuses, Garak reluctantly does so. As the device causes Odo obvious pain, Garak begs him to reveal anything of use, even if it's a lie. Odo confesses his desire to return to his fellow Changelings, and Garak deactivates the device.

When the fleet arrives at the Founders' homeworld, they find little resistance and open fire, but soon realize that the planet is abandoned and the mission was a trap. Suddenly, Dominion ships appear and engage the fleet, vastly outnumbering them. In the resulting battle, the Cardassian–Romulan fleet is annihilated.

Knowing that the battle is lost, Garak leaves the bridge of his ship to rescue Odo. They encounter Lovok, who reveals himself to be a Founder and assists Odo in escaping. He confesses that the Founders viewed the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order as threats and helped push Tain's plan forward in order to destroy them, meaning the only threats left are the Federation and the Klingons. He invites Odo to return to the Founders, but Odo declines.

Garak attempts to save Tain, but Tain refuses to leave, and Garak refuses to abandon him, so Odo knocks Garak unconscious and escapes with him on the runabout. Trying to escape the crossfire, they are badly damaged and fearing the end, Garak asks Odo for forgiveness. The ''Defiant'' then rescues them from the battle.

Back on Deep Space Nine, Toddman confirms there are no signs of other survivors from the attack, and subtly commends Sisko by deciding not to court-martial him. Garak sits mournfully in the wreckage of his shop. Odo arrives and invites Garak to join him for breakfast.

When the First Minister of the Bajoran Provisional Government dies, conniving religious leader Kai Winn is appointed to his position on an interim basis and is likely to be formally elected to the office. Later, Winn approaches Major Kira with a special request. A group of farmers in Kira's home province refuse to return some soil reclamators that Winn needs for Bajor's recovery efforts in Rakantha Province. Their leader, Shakaar, also led Kira's resistance cell during the Occupation, so Winn wants Kira to convince him to return the equipment. Kira is reluctant to confront her friend and mentor but agrees to do it for the good of Bajor.

Kira visits Shakaar, who tells her he only received the reclamators two months before, and was told that he and his fellow farmers (also former members of his resistance cell) would have their use for a year. But when Winn took over, they were ordered to return them immediately. Since the Rakantha project is geared toward farming products for export, while Shakaar's farmers are trying to feed their people, he sees his project as far more important. Kira encourages him to meet with Winn, hoping they can compromise.

Winn tells Kira she agrees to the meeting, but sends security officers to arrest Shakaar. Infuriated that Winn lied, Kira helps subdue the officers and escapes with Shakaar.

Now fugitives, Shakaar, Kira, and their comrades hide in the mountains where they once eluded the Cardassians. Weeks later, as the militia closes in, Shakaar's exhausted group realizes there is no option but to stop running and fight. They lead their pursuers into a canyon to set up an ambush.

Hiding in the canyon, Shakaar and Kira watch as the Bajoran troops enter their trap. But as they see the faces of their "enemies", the realization hits that they will be shooting former comrades-in-arms. Unwilling to do this, Kira and Shakaar drop their weapons and, after a brief conversation with the leader, Colonel Lenaris, a cease-fire is called. Later, Shakaar informs Winn that he has decided to enter the election for First Minister. Realizing a competitive election against the popular Shakaar will expose how Winn's actions brought Bajor to the brink of civil war, Winn decides to step down from the race.

In a side plot back on Deep Space Nine, O'Brien records an incredible winning streak at darts; his streak ends when he leans backwards for a drink and severely injures his shoulder during a match.

Kira is shocked and saddened when Latha Mabrin, a fellow former member of Kira's resistance cell, is murdered. Kira's shock turns to fear when she receives a message consisting of a picture of Latha and a garbled voice saying, "That's one." Kira interprets the message as a threat to all the former members of the cell, and frets that if she were not pregnant as a surrogate mother for Keiko and Miles O'Brien's child she would be better able to protect her comrades.

Kira makes arrangements to transport resistance member Fala onto a runabout returning to Deep Space Nine for her protection; but the transport is sabotaged, and Fala is killed. Kira soon receives a message from the scrambled voice saying "That's two". Later, while working on the case with security chief Odo, Kira receives a "That's three" message displaying the face of Mobara, another member of the cell.

Furel and Lupaza, two more former comrades, come to Deep Space Nine, offering to hunt down the assassin for Kira. She prefers to handle her problem within the boundaries of the law, but allows Furel and Lupaza to stay with her in the O'Briens' quarters. During a staff meeting, Odo surmises that whoever is doing the killing most likely has a vendetta against Kira—and that she is also a likely target, and she notices that the recordings are a modification of her own voice. Soon Furel and Lupaza are killed by an explosion in the O'Brien quarters.

Kira steals a list of suspects from Odo's office and takes off to investigate. She soon arrives at the home of Silaran Prin, one of the suspects. Prin captures and immobilizes her, and explains his motivation.

Prin, a Cardassian civilian who was disfigured in a Resistance bombing, is punishing those responsible. He accuses Kira of killing indiscriminately, while he kills only the guilty. She counters that the Cardassians were a hostile alien race occupying Bajor, and even if he was a civilian he was indirectly aiding the occupation and therefore a legitimate target. Prin tells Kira that he will spare her baby, but kill her, and prepares to operate. Kira begs for a sedative, realizing that the herbs she has taken for her pregnancy render most sedatives ineffective. She pretends to fall asleep, then lunges at Silaran, attacking and killing him. When the Deep Space Nine crew arrives to rescue her, Prin is already dead, and Kira, shaken, only wants to go home.

The game takes place in a cyberpunk setting in the year 2031. Old Tokyo is a deserted ruin, but a haven for Rumbling, a new form of televised combat sport involving mecha known in the game as SVs. The SVs are capable of wielding different weapons and abilities such as temporary invisibility thanks to AI installed in each SV. Players assume the role of a recent, nameless arrival intent on climbing the ranks of this sport who meets many characters involved in the sport along the way; each character has different sub-plots and problems that contribute to the setting providing an interesting distraction. Although unknown to the rest of the cast, the First Ranker of the sport along with her AI companion seem to notice something about the main character.

Life reflects art for Kyousuke Iwaki and Youji Katou, two adult film stars who are considering retirement from their sordid careers. However, when they're invited to audition for a new erotic film, they realize that this may be their last chance to achieve mainstream success. Unfortunately, things sour quickly when the director asks them to make love to each other and determine who will get the lead role. What follows next is romance, and passionate sex that will alter their careers.

The story picks up approximately two weeks after the events of ''Guilty Gear X''. In the time following Dizzy's disappearance, the mysterious Post-War Administration Bureau begins secretly investigating the Gears and fighters from previous tournaments for their own needs and ambitions. To achieve their goals the organization has created several mechanical copies of Ky Kiske, the “Robo-Kys”. In addition, fighters find themselves in a reality beyond their control, most notably in the manipulative hands of the villainess I-No, who is revealed to be a servant of “That Man”, the creator of the Gears. Each character provides a different ending to ''Guilty Gear X2''.

During the 1980s and 1990s, a new wave of criminals is emerging in Oslo. They are more international and more dangerous than the capital has ever witnessed before. Norwegian drug kingpins are attacking the new immigrant criminal gangs who wish to get the profits of selling heroin to themselves. A battle where a lot of blood is to be shed before it could stabilise is on the horizon. Amid this, three immigrant boys by the name of Wasim, Riaz and Munawar all coming from the Norwegian Pakistani community are growing up on the east side of Oslo. They feel like Norwegians and expect the same respect any other Norwegian would have. However, they soon learn that with their immigrant background they are far away from getting a good job that pays well. Life is also boring growing up in the safest city in the world, and the boys find school to be a drag. The three boys would rather do more exciting things than school. They decide to take a shortcut in gaining respect by joining the gang of East Side Crew, which is led by the local petty criminals Sadiq and his brother Khalid.

Wasim and his two friends find their status in the local community to be rising and their peers giving them more respect as they suddenly get money from their gang activities. Something the three boys had never experienced before was having their own money. Suddenly Wasim's father discovers what his son has been doing in his spare time and the father decides to send Wasim to a distant aunt who lives in Pakistan so that Wasim can attend Madrasa in her village. After two years Wasim returns to his family in Norway, he finds out that the family situation has bettered, and they have more material possessions. Wasim quickly finds out that the middle-class life in Stovner is too boring for his taste and resumes his criminal life with Riaz and Munawar and the rest of the East Side Crew.

As an adult Wasim has transformed into a tough gangster and is now a grandiose heroin dealer. Wasim and the gang is importing their own heroin to Norway from Pakistan. This import business creates many new enemies to the East Side Crew. It is discovered that Wasim's friend Riaz has snitched on Khalid and gone on the run, the two remaining friends of the gang Wasim and Munawar must join the manhunt for their beloved childhood friend Riaz. The manhunt puts Wasim in a conflicting position, he does not know where he should put his loyalty, his friend Riaz or the gang, East Side Crew. The manhunt sets up a string of brutal events and eventually Wasim tries to think of a plan where he can get the ultimate revenge without getting himself killed or caught by the authorities.

The street

Omar's boyfriend Brandon has been murdered. Wallace wakes up in his squatter apartment and goes through his routine of readying several children in his charge for school. The police arrive in the neighborhood and, as Poot and Wallace leave the house, they see Brandon's body. Across town, D'Angelo and Shardene discuss their blossoming relationship. D'Angelo crudely reveals that he believes that all women come with a cost, particularly his other girl Donette.

Wallace expresses his anguish at seeing Brandon's body. D'Angelo unsympathetically reminds Wallace that he knew what would happen to Brandon, and reminds him that killing is part of "the game" of drug dealing in Baltimore. Stringer tells D'Angelo they are bringing Bodie home following his recent arrests. At a court hearing, Levy lies to defend Bodie's actions, causing the judge to set him free on the condition that he makes regular phone calls to a probation officer. Herc and Carver later pick up Bodie, assuming he absconded from custody a second time, and are surprised that he managed to get released.

Avon, Stringer, and Stinkum visit the pit and deliver reward money to D'Angelo and Wallace for their part in finding Brandon; Avon also tells D'Angelo that Wee-Bey and Bird killed him. D'Angelo assures Stringer that there are no snitches in his crew. Avon tells D'Angelo that if he keeps working well, he will receive "points on the package" soon. D'Angelo, still withholding payment from the pit crew, finds his lookout, a girl named Cassandra, with groceries. She reveals she has been conspiring with Sterling to steal small amounts of drugs and sell them on the side. In order to protect them from punishment, he reassigns them elsewhere and tells nobody except Wallace.

With Johnny released from medical care, Bubbles returns to the streets. The pair runs a short con to steal copper pipes, which they sell to a contractor at "30 cents a foot" to make their next drug purchase. Bubbles and Johnny plan to steal the same copper pipes back from the site the contractor is working on. When Johnny goes out to buy more drugs, he is arrested. Bubbles remarks upon Johnny's bad luck.

The police

McNulty meets with Rawls and Landsman. Rawls tells McNulty he expects the Barksdale investigation to wrap up in a week's time, which McNulty has no intention of doing. Pressured by Rawls, Landsman orders Bunk to charge the Barksdales in the old murder cases. McNulty, Greggs and Freamon expect issuing charges will prompt Avon to change his operation and negate all their work. Daniels fails to dissuade Rawls, but convinces Burrell to overrule him. Rawls responds by asking Santangelo to keep him informed of anything that McNulty does that might be used against him.

In the detail office, Freamon notes the high level of pager activity the previous night. The new wiretaps on the payphones legally require officers to monitor them; Herc is dismayed that this will mean long hours of surveillance work. Freamon is angry at his co-workers' laziness and asks what they expected when they joined the detail. After Stinkum chastises Bodie for using his name on the phone, Freamon explains to Prez that the call should be marked "pertinent" because it is evidence of conspiracy, even without providing hard evidence of drugs. Prez shows an aptitude and an interest in meticulously tracking the wiretaps, even asking an impressed Daniels if they can get additional filing cabinets. Daniels berates Polk for stumbling in drunk and orders him to either get to work or check into medical for alcohol abuse. Polk chooses the latter.

McNulty meets with Vernon Holley and Ed Norris, the detectives working Brandon's murder, and discusses the potential link to the Barksdales. McNulty gets a call from Omar while minding his sons - he is forced to bring them along to the morgue with Omar. On seeing his lover's body, Omar screams, which the boys hear. Omar visits the detail, which has been able to tie Brandon's murder to the pager activity. McNulty is angry that they were unable to use the information, complaining that they are continually one step behind. Freamon and McNulty interview the arcade owner and Freamon matches the nearby payphone to the one used the night before. Omar offers to be a witness in the Gant case. The episode ends with the police photographs of Brandon's mutilated corpse on Daniels' desk.

Dinner is exceptionally busy at the hotel, and the guests complain to Sybil about the quality of the service. However, when Basil checks with the guests, they do not mention their complaints. As service winds down, a new couple arrives, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton; while Mrs. Hamilton is British, her husband is American, and runs a list of complaints about their travels from London compared with the United States. Because of their late arrival, Mr. Hamilton asks Basil to bribe the cook to keep the kitchen open so they can have a meal after they have unpacked. Basil tries to trick Terry the chef with only half of what Mr. Hamilton gave him. Terry agrees, but claims it will cause him to miss a karate class, but then Polly reveals that she, Terry, Manuel, and Terry's Finnish girlfriend were to have a night out. Irritated by Terry's fib, Basil sends them on their way, intending to cook for the Hamiltons himself.

The Hamiltons first ask for screwdrivers, of which Basil has never heard, irritating Mr. Hamilton. They ask for a Waldorf salad, an item not on the menu, followed by two rare steaks. Basil similarly has no idea what goes into a Waldorf salad, and his attempts to make it are criticised by Mr. Hamilton. Basil returns to the kitchen and shouts loudly as if he were yelling at the cook. Basil makes other excuses, unaware that Sybil has been able to prepare and serve the proper dish. Basil, on discovering this, faux-yells at the chef, but Sybil follows him into the kitchen and slaps Basil for his antics. Later, Basil reads a letter supposedly from Terry that puts all the blame on the chef, but during this, the unattended steaks start to burn, and draw the guests to the lobby.

Mr. Hamilton yells at Basil, stating the hotel is "the crummiest, shoddiest, most badly run hotel in Western Europe", and Basil is comparable to Donald Duck. Basil coerces the resident guests to acknowledge the quality of his hotel, but as he continues to argue with Mr. Hamilton, the other guests start venting their own problems. Mr. Hamilton laughs at Basil as he goes off to pack his bags. Basil snaps at the other guests, comparing them to Nazi Germany, and insisting to Sybil that either the guests go, or he does. Sybil stares at him, and Basil quickly exits the hotel, only to return seconds later after he realise it's raining, requesting a room and breakfast in bed, complete with a Waldorf Salad and "lashings of hot screwdriver."

The platoon are examining their new Smith Gun (an artillery piece unique to the Home Guard), which they have to take on a Home Guard efficiency test for the weekend. Wilson is told off by Mainwaring when he complains "do we have to drag that gun about, what an awful fag". Godfrey and his sisters have made an inappropriate cover for the gun out of a flowery old sofa cover.

They are going to the test in Jones' van, but Walker has been using it to fulfil a blackmarket order for Warden Hodges, the greengrocer, and has half a ton of onions. These cause the platoon (especially Pike) some discomfort on the journey and Hodges is so incensed about the non-delivery of the onions that he follows them.

Before the start of the test, Wilson shares some information from a friend who previously took part in the test, where the test officer will fire a lot of questions at the platoon and then leave the room, whereby someone else comes in disguised and plants a bomb. Jones shows them his rumāl, a thuggee scarf used to throttle a victim from behind. Meanwhile, Hodges and the Verger appear outside one of the windows, and they constantly pester the platoon over the course of the weekend as they attempt to retrieve Hodges' onions.

The test is supervised by a Captain Ramsey, a tough, no-nonsense officer who berates the platoon for their shortcomings, particularly Pike, who is crying from his contact with the onions. Ramsey informs them that they will have to pass tests to be awarded stars, 12 being the maximum that can be earned.

The first test requires the platoon to respond to role-playing scenarios. However, it does not go well for them as Wilson is so indifferent to the role-playing that it loses all effect, Jones attempts to throttle Ramsey when his back is turned (because he had told Jones he was going to be a Gestapo officer) and Wilson ruins Mainwaring's test by pointing out that Mainwaring wouldn't have to push anyone out of a declining hot-air balloon as he could wait for it to land on the ground for the excess passenger to step out.

Ramsey gives up, goes out and sends in an NAAFI canteen girl. Remembering Wilson's advice from before, the platoon grab her, knocking over her trolley and pulling her hair, believing it is a wig, to which she responds, "Oh, you're worse than the Regulars!" Told to get rid of the urn, Pike throws it through the (closed) window, where it hits Hodges and the Verger, and empties all over the latter.

The next exercise is to get one man over a tall electric fence in half an hour using only equipment provided to them (mostly wooden planks and oil drums). Jones inevitably volunteers to be the man over the fence, and tries to get Walker to catapult him over the fence, but in doing so they break the only decent long length of wood, thus dooming all other attempts to failure. After half an hour the platoon still have not done it, so they plead for more time. They try until midnight, with no success. Ramsey is not impressed the next morning, revealing that he did not award the platoon any stars for the first test and only one star for the second for "perseverance", despite the fact that their constantly setting the alarm off on the fence kept him awake all night.

The final exercise is using the Smith Gun to repel an assault by Ramsey's regular troops. The three pieces of ammunition for the gun lies behind the same type of electrified fence the platoon were meant to have learnt how to scale in the previous test. Meanwhile, Hodges and the Verger have finally got the key to Jones' van from Walker, and they rush off to transfer the onions to Hodges' van. The platoon suddenly realise that they could use the onions instead of the ammunition for the Smith Gun. They rush to Hodges' van with Mainwaring demanding the onions "in the name of the King", but is forced to buy them off Hodges. They rush back to the Smith Gun, load and fire the onions at the advancing troops, who retreat in confusion. The platoon are jubilant. Ramsey returns and congratulates Mainwaring, saying he has never seen such initiative displayed by a Home Guard unit and awards them 12 stars outright. They all then rush to retrieve the fallen onions.

The Police

Greggs and McNulty attend a court hearing for Marvin Browning, a Barksdale dealer arrested for a hand-to-hand deal. Hoping he will give them information, they push Assistant State's Attorney Dawkins to pursue a maximum sentence, even though Browning had only been caught selling small amounts of heroin and cocaine. He nonetheless summarily refuses their offer of a deal. Polk visits Mahon in the hospital, where he learns that Mahon will be getting an early retirement and an increase in his pension due to his injury. Meanwhile, Herc and Carver drive to a juvenile detention center in Prince George's County, only to find that Bodie has escaped from the low-security facility. They raid Bodie's home but find only his grandmother. Embarrassed by the rude intrusion, Herc apologizes and leaves his card.

Bunk and McNulty review old homicide cases and try to match them to the Barksdale Organization. Landsman insists they review the case of Deirdre Kresson, a college girl murdered far from the west side, with a "Dee" listed as a possible suspect. McNulty reluctantly agrees to investigate the seemingly unrelated murder since Homicide is currently understaffed. At the crime scene, the two communicate using only variations of the word "fuck" as they recreate the murder and find a shell casing and bullet that previous detectives missed. Landsman visits Rawls and, while noting McNulty's character flaws, asserts that those very qualities make him a good detective. Relenting, Rawls offers a deal: if McNulty wraps up the detail in two weeks, he can return to normal duty.

Greggs and Bubbles discuss the recent hit on the Barksdale stash. He is disappointed she has never heard of Omar or his brother, No-Heart Anthony. McNulty is forced to drive Bubbles to his son's soccer game. During the trip, he discusses sharing parental custody with his estranged wife Elena, but the conversation devolves into profanity. At home, Greggs notices Cheryl's cell phone bill and realizes that the Barksdale dealers use pagers to avoid any documentation of incoming and outgoing calls. Phelan is disappointed when Burrell tells him they have nothing on the Barksdales and phones McNulty. Daniels meets with Burrell and tells him that he can take the Barksdale case wherever the deputy commissioner wants, raising the possibility of McNulty's suggested wire to make the case.

Greggs suggests pager cloning to monitor Barksdale communications, but Daniels points out that they need to have a number to bug. Freamon surprises everybody by revealing that the number he found in the stash house belongs to D'Angelo. While sharing a drink with McNulty, Freamon explains that he was transferred to the pawn shop unit after pursuing a politically-connected suspect against his major's orders. Freamon warns that McNulty is likely on a similar path. That night, McNulty shows up at Greggs' apartment drunk. She confirms that their visual surveillance was unable to follow targets into the towers as planned. Back with Cheryl, Greggs explains that McNulty is lonely, and they begin to make love.

The Street

Omar, Brandon, and Bailey enjoy the proceeds from the Barksdale robbery. Brandon apologizes for using Omar's name during the raid, but Omar points out that he was already well known in Baltimore anyway. He is worried that the Barksdales could attack Brandon, now revealed to be Omar's lover. An addict approaches Omar with her infant son and respectfully asks for a free fix, which he gives her.

Meanwhile, Avon discusses the loss of the stash with his enforcers Anton "Stinkum" Artis and Wee-Bey and puts a contract out on Omar's crew. Avon doubles the bounty when informed by Stinkum that Omar is gay. Stringer tells Avon he is worried about the pit operation since the robbery coincided with the police raid. He reassures Avon that his nephew D'Angelo is doing well, but he is worried there may be a leak from someone else in D'Angelo's crew. Bodie arrives back at the pit, where Poot and Wallace are surprised that he got home so soon after his arrest. D'Angelo bristles when Bodie says he would still be there had it been him, and tells them that he murdered Kresson, Avon's scorned girlfriend, after she had threatened revenge by testifying to the police. Bodie, who has never killed anybody, is humbled. The dealers destroy some new security cameras around the towers.

The police

The Barksdale detail discusses the information they have garnered from their surveillance, with Prez showing a surprising gift for decrypting messages. They have identified a resupply with a specific time. Herc, Carver, Sydnor and Greggs make a labored arrest of the package carrier, but let Stinkum get away so as to not compromise the wiretap. Stinkum pages Stringer from outside the towers and Sydnor rushes over to photograph him as the call is returned, so they can legally monitor the phone call. In interrogation, Prez recognizes the carrier as Kevin Johnston, the boy he blinded in one eye. Daniels appeals to Johnston to contact him if he ever wants to change his life; Johnston mocks his offer.

McNulty and Pearlman meet with Phelan, who agrees to back the detectives. Phelan is surprised that Daniels stood up for the wiretaps, and worries that McNulty no longer trusts him since the Gant murder hit the newspapers. McNulty feels that he cannot trust anyone at the moment. Daniels attends a fundraiser with his wife, Marla. Also in attendance are Burrell and State Senator Clay Davis. Daniels finds himself in the kitchen with Davis' driver, Damien "Day-Day" Price, who is viewing the house's valuables. He speculates about the profit that could be made by burglarizing the home until Daniels reveals that he is a police officer.

Rawls gives Santangelo an ultimatum: if he wishes to remain in Homicide, he must either clear at least one of his unsolved cases by day's end or inform on McNulty. Landsman jokingly recommends a psychic, Madame LaRue, and a desperate Santangelo follows his advice; the psychic turns out to be a phony. McNulty and Bunk work the Gant case based on Omar's tip that Bird was involved. They canvass the buildings opposite the crime scene looking for witnesses and find an older woman who corroborates Omar's story and is willing to testify. Based on Omar's tip, the Barksdale detail tracks down and apprehends Bird. A ballistics test confirms that his gun was used to kill Gant.

After Bird refuses to cooperate and profanely insults the interrogators, he is beaten by Daniels, Landsman, and Greggs. Omar gives a statement to Bunk, criticizing Bird for killing a civilian. When Bunk asks Omar if he has any other tips on old murders, he gives information about Denise Redding, which happens to be one of Santangelo's open cases. McNulty relays Omar's information to Santangelo, who in gratitude warns McNulty that Rawls is after him. McNulty visits Pearlman to discuss his worries about Rawls, as he loves the job too much for Rawls to take it from him.

The street

Greggs gets Johnny out of his charge for possession on Bubbles' behalf; part of his deal involves going into a treatment program. Bubbles and Johnny attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting as part of the deal. Bubbles is impressed by the speaker, Walon, and declares that he has a strong desire to live at the end of the meeting.

D'Angelo visits Orlando's to see Avon. Orlando tells D'Angelo he has a proposition for him. Later, in the pit, Orlando asks him to help sell some cocaine from New Orleans behind Avon's back; D'Angelo tells Orlando he will have to think about it.

In the office of Orlando's, Stringer berates Stinkum for talking on the phone and insists that something is wrong in D'Angelo's crew. Avon tells D'Angelo to change up and stop all trade for now. He also worries that the police do not seem to be onto Stinkum, as they should have connected him through the truck's plate number already. In the pit, Bodie quizzes Poot about Wallace, who has holed up in his squat and started taking drugs since Brandon's murder. Stringer orders them to rip out the payphones in the pit and to vary which payphones they use, not using the same one more than once per day.

Mr. Graham, an assistant bank manager who works in the West End of London, is dissatisfied with his boring life.

He meets Lady Britt Dorset, a spendthrift aristocrat. They devise a plan, along with her husband, Lord Nicholas Dorset, to steal £300,000 from the bank.

Their plan is to be enacted on the day that the manager plays golf. It involves Lord Dorset, posing as a bank inspector, substituting counterfeit money for real money which he places in Britt's deposit box.

The scheme almost fails when a real inspector arrives, but a second opportunity arises, and Lady Dorset absconds with the funds.

She fails to show up for the scheduled division of the loot, however, and Graham and Lord Dorset realize that they have been double crossed. Undaunted, they begin to plan another robbery for the following year.

The Police

Phelan signs the wiretap affidavit for a clone of D'Angelo's pager. Freamon finds that each pager message consists of a seven-digit phone number and a two-digit identifying tag. The phone numbers used do not work, so Freamon postulates that they are using a code to mask the numbers. The code is ultimately cracked by Prez. Freamon visits Daniels' office and tells him that they need audio surveillance on the payphones surrounding the projects to make the case. He knows that Daniels is concerned about his career, but insists that they put the cases first.

Bubbles tells Greggs where to find Omar's van. She and McNulty sit on the van and wait for Omar to show up, hoping to convince him to become an informant. McNulty calls Elena and asks for his sons to come over. He insists he has everything ready, but she does not believe him and refuses to allow the visit. Meanwhile, Carver and Herc track down Bodie to the pit and violently arrest him for absconding from the juvenile detention center. Bodie refuses to consider making a deal, and the detectives respond to his insults with a savage beating. However, while waiting to hand Bodie over to juvenile intake, they end up shooting pool with him.

Bunk receives a ballistics report confirming that the shell casing from the Kresson murder is linked to the Barksdales, just as Landsman predicted. McNulty and Greggs follow Omar's van into a cemetery, where they parley. McNulty tries to convince Omar that they have an enemy in common, but Omar thinks that working with the police is wrong. McNulty reveals that Bailey has been killed; though Omar pretends to be unfazed, he reveals two things: that a Barksdale soldier named Bird killed William Gant, and that he knows that Bubbles is their informant.

The Street

After receiving a silent phone call, Avon tells Wee-Bey to remove the phone lines. Wee-Bey tells Avon he is worried they are being paranoid. Meanwhile, Omar, Bailey, and Brandon discuss their next "rip" on an East Side corner. Omar draws out a plan to trap the dealers in the alley they use. He approaches from the front carrying a shotgun while nonchalantly whistling "The Farmer in the Dell," which scares the dealers and causes them to run into Brandon and Bailey in the alley.

In the pit, Bodie and Poot discuss HIV. Bodie notices Wallace a distance away playing with a Transformers figurine and throws a bottle at the wall near him in anger, yelling that the crew keeps getting robbed because the members are not on their guard. D'Angelo takes Donette out to an expensive restaurant. Requesting a quieter table, the waiter informs D'Angelo that the other table is reserved. Donette argues that D'Angelo should have been more forceful, but he worries about seeming out of place. He wonders to Donette if there are markers of their social class that they can't avoid showing when they appear at the nice restaurant. Donette assures D'Angelo that anyone who can pay belongs at the restaurant, though D'Angelo embarrassingly shows his unfamiliarity with the atmosphere by mistakenly reaching for a display dessert.

Avon and Stringer discuss taking over the Edmondson Avenue corners, as they are wide open. Avon suggests that Stinkum should run the territory. Bubbles tells Johnny that he is on a mission to bring down the Barksdale hoppers that beat him, but Johnny cannot understand why Bubbles is voluntarily working with the police as he feels his misfortune is all part of the "game." Avon and D'Angelo visit Avon's brother in a nursing home, who is hospitalized in a vegetative state due to an implied gunshot wound to the head, serving as an example of the dire consequences of acting carelessly in their way of life. Avon tells D'Angelo that one mistake could see either of them like his brother and that the fear motivates Avon to work harder. Later, Poot and Wallace spot Brandon in an arcade and notify D'Angelo. D'Angelo pages the news in from the pit phones. Although all the pages are logged at the detail office, the calls themselves are not recorded, so the details are useless without a wire.

Frustrated with the fact that he cannot give his wife Priscilla (Parker Posey) an orgasm, Jack (Paul Rudd) moves out of the house and starts a relationship with Kristen (Mischa Barton), his student. Unfulfilled, Priscilla forms an unlikely partnership with Wayne (Danny DeVito), a businessman more than twice her age.

In a Broadway production of a play entitled ''The Snare'', one of the actors, John Woodford, inexplicably dies during a stage performance, and his body disappears. Few clues exist as to what caused his death, aside from several drops of liquid found that resembled chloroform. Rumors of a love triangle between Woodford and two cast members circulate as a possible motive for his death.

Five years after the theater's closure, producer Arthur McHugh decides to solve the mystery by again staging the play with the remaining cast and re-enacting Woodford's murder. During rehearsals in the abandoned theater, strange occurrences plague the cast, including ominous noises, falling scenery, and an unexplained fire. Doris, the lead actress, has her purse stolen from her dressing room by an unseen assailant; Mike Brody, the stage manager, reportedly receives a telegram warning him to drop out of the play, signed by John Woodford, and the theater's new owner, Arthur McHugh, also receives a visit from Woodford's ghost.

The production continues, and during the final rehearsal, Harvey Carleton inexplicably disappears from the stage during a blackout. Doris spots a mysterious masked figure in a theater box in addition to a man resembling John Woodford, but both disappear. Behind a picture hanging on the stage, a lever is discovered which opens a trap door, where the cast find Harvey incoherent. Arthur and Richard Quayle, another cast member, venture inside, where they discover a tunnel that leads to Doris's dressing room.

Arthur has police officers appointed at the theater for the show's opening the following night. During the performance, an electrical wire charged to 400 volts is discovered connected to a candlestick onstage, and Arthur lunges at Richard to prevent him from touching it during the final scene. The unseen masked assailant is discovered hiding inside a grandfather clock onstage, but he drops through a trap door in the floor just after shooting one of the police officers. The assailant scales the theater and throws a dummy resembling John Woodford onto the stage. He then begins swinging from a rope, but is brought back down by a stagehand who cuts it.

The masked assailant is discovered to be Brody, who caused Woodford's death via electrocution and had been behind the "hauntings" to prevent the theater from being used.

Martha and Jed Richards live in Oregon in 1862. They and their two young daughters moved there to make a new life, unfortunately both of their daughters died from yellow fever along the way. This has left Martha an emotional wreck, and she is unable to move on with her life. That is until an orphan named Danny comes to live with them. Jed immediately accepts Danny as his son, but Martha is still too upset to be able to love him. As time passes, however, she finds herself more and more able to accept him as part of the family.

A groom and his four groomsmen wrestle with issues such as fatherhood, homosexuality, honesty and growing up in the week leading up to his wedding.

Paulie (Burns), a self-supporting writer, is making plans for his marriage to Sue (Murphy), his girlfriend who is in her 5th month of pregnancy. In real life, Burns' then-girlfriend, supermodel Christy Turlington, was also five months pregnant when they married in June 2003. Christy inspired Burns to rework the manuscript for this movie, which he hadn't worked on in many months.

Paulie is strongly advised by his older brother Jimbo (Logue) to not go through with the wedding. Jimbo, who runs a struggling business, is envious of Paulie, partly because his own childless marriage is unraveling.

T.C. (Leguizamo), who left the neighborhood without explanation eight years earlier, returns for the wedding. Apparently, before leaving, T.C. had stolen a Tom Seaver baseball card from Paulie's cousin Mike (Mohr). Mike still harbors such resentment over the loss that he immediately starts a fight with T.C. Later, T.C. hesitantly reveals that he abruptly left the neighborhood because he's gay and that he stole Mike's card because, even though they were best friends, he hated him for his constant verbal gay bashing.

The neighborhood bar is owned by Dez (Lillard), who is married with two children and is the most content and functional member of the gang. He is continually trying to "get the band back together". He has even pushed his own sons into learning the guitar and is seen riding them to become better.

Jessica Capshaw has a small role in this film. Her stepfather, Steven Spielberg, directed Edward Burns in ''Saving Private Ryan''.

Late one night in December, a young boy named Derek Quinn (William Thorne) hears the doorbell ringing and goes downstairs and finds a Christmas present addressed to him on the porch. His father, Tom (Van Quattro), reprimands him for being up so late and opening the door, sending him off to bed. Instead, Derek watches from the stairs as his curious father opens the gift. Finding a musical orb shaped like Santa Claus in the box, he activates it, causing it to strangle him with retractable cords. As Tom struggles, he slips and falls onto a fireplace poker, his impaled body being found by his wife Sarah (Jane Higginson) a few moments later.

Two weeks later, Sarah takes Derek, who has not spoken since his father's death, to a toy store owned by the elderly Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney) and his odd son Pino (Brian Bremer), not realizing Noah Adams (Tracy Fraim) has followed them. After Derek rejects all the toys Joe shows him (and one called Larry the Larvae that Pino tries to give him), he and his mother leave, prompting Joe to begin angrily yelling at Pino, blaming him for all the store's recent failures. While running from his father, Pino bumps into Noah and drops the larvae toy, which Noah picks up and buys along with some other toys. At his home, Noah begins taking apart the toys he bought from Joe when he is confronted by his angry landlord Harold (Gerry Black). Late paying rent, Noah, to smooth things over, gives Harold the Larry the Larvae toy in exchange for a one-day extension. While driving home, Harold is killed when Larry the Larvae crawls into his mouth and bursts out his eye, causing his car to crash and explode.

The next day, Sarah takes Derek to see Santa (portrayed by Noah, who takes his friend's shift) at the mall, finding another gift on the porch on the way out. While Sarah and Derek are gone, Pino sneaks into their house, using a key he had hidden years earlier when he and his father lived there. When Sarah and Derek get home early (due to Noah's odd behavior towards Derek), Pino flees from the house. After confronting Joe about Pino's intrusion (and stating that she will call the police the next time it happens) Sarah decides to let Derek open the present dropped off earlier, but Derek refuses to touch it. Leaving Derek alone, Sarah is visited by her friend Kim Levitt (Neith Hunter), and while the two talk, Derek sneaks outside and throws the present in a garbage can, where Kim's adopted son Lonnie (Conan Yuzna) finds it. Lonnie unwraps the gift and finds roller skates in it. In a drunken rage, Joe begins beating Pino, accidentally killing him by knocking him down some stairs. While using the skates, Lonnie is hit by a car and left hospitalized when rockets hidden within the skates cause him to lose control.

While Sarah visits Lonnie and Kim at the hospital, Derek is visited by Noah, who is shooed away by the babysitter Meridith (Amy L. Taylor), who tells Noah where to find Sarah when Noah keeps badgering her from outside. In the parking garage of Sarah's workplace, Noah, who is revealed to be Sarah's old boyfriend and Derek's real father, confronts her, and the two reconcile. At the Quinn house, Meridith and her boyfriend Buck (Eric Welch) engage in sex, involving a toy hand on his butt, a toy left by Joe dressed as Santa. Joe, who had broken into the home, has a horde of toys attack them while he abducts Derek, taking him to the toy store. Shortly before taking Sarah home, Noah tells her about Joe's past, saying he was arrested years earlier for booby-trapping toys he gave to children after his pregnant wife died in a car crash. Pulling into the driveway, Sarah and Noah find the hysterical and bloody Meridith, who tells them Buck is dead (having his head cut off by a circular saw attached to a toy car) and that Joe took Derek.

Sarah rushes to the toy store (followed by Noah) and starts looking around upstairs, arming herself with a knife. Joe attacks Noah with a remote control plane and an acid squirting water pistol in the basement, knocking him out. Hearing the noise, Sarah goes downstairs, finds the toys, and Sara demasks the non-toy person to find Joe's dead body and tries to run, only to be stopped by the Joe dressed as Santa. The imposter Joe removes his face (showing robotic components underneath) and puts on another, revealing himself to be Pino. Pino explains to Sarah that Joe created him to replace his dead son, but he could never live up to his father's expectations (as he was not "a real son") and was continually broken and rebuilt by Joe in his drunken rages. Pino says that he wants Sarah to be his mother (sending killer toys to try to kill Derek), then sexually assaults her while frantically screaming.

Sarah manages to stab Pino in the head with a screwdriver, causing him to begin malfunctioning. Grabbing the knife Sarah dropped earlier, Pino begins trying to stab Derek, whom he had placed in a large sack. Noah breaks into the room and starts fighting Pino, distracting him long enough for Sarah to halve him at the waist with an axe. Barely functioning, Pino cries for his father before grabbing Sarah's leg, causing her to stomp his head into pieces.

As Sarah, Derek, and Noah confront that these things are only toys, the eyes of one of Joe's partially assembled robots spark ominously, like Pino and his creations.

Bill (John Phillip Law), a boy whose father was killed and mother and sister were raped and murdered in front of him by a gang, sets out 15 years later to exact revenge, having used the time to become an expert marksman with a gun. Each of the outlaws bears a characteristic that Bill memorized while watching his family slaughtered and his house set on fire: the first has a tattoo of four aces on his chest, the second a scar, the third one a distinctive earring and the fourth (who was the one who saved young Bill from the burning house) wears a necklace bearing a skull; while he saw the face of the fifth, he never saw the face of the man who saved him from the fire.

As he begins his journey, a gunfighter named Ryan (Lee Van Cleef) is released from a prison after serving 15 years there. He was framed for an armed robbery by the very same men who murdered Bill's family. When they meet along the way, Ryan gets the better of Bill, who is blinded by vengeance, but he does Bill no harm. In the next town, Ryan asks for a man named Cavanaugh (Anthony Dawson), whom Bill recognized later as the man with four aces tattoo. Bill manages to kill Cavanaugh in a duel, but the more experienced Ryan insists on tracking the other outlaws alone. They cross paths again in Lyndon City, where Ryan meets rich banker named Walcott (Luigi Pistilli) and demands his share of the robbery 15 years ago. Walcott stages a robbery on his own bank and frames Ryan. When the tables are turned later, Bill reciprocates, helping Ryan escape from a jail. An equally determined Bill sets out ahead of him.

Bill reaches a Mexican town, where he recognizes the man with the big earring and guns him down. He is captured by the outlaws, beaten and buried alive from the neck down (he had also recognized the man with the scar and Walcott). Left to die in the hot sun, he is rescued by Ryan, who shoots several men standing guard. Preparing for the gang's return, Bill notices that Ryan is wearing a necklace with a skull. Ryan admits he was present during the murders, but arrived late and did not participate; he also rescued Bill from the fire. He gives his word that once the outlaws have been dealt with, he will remain to face whatever justice Bill seeks.

In a final shootout during a sand storm, the last remaining man who killed Bill's family has him dead to rights, only to be killed by Ryan's thrown knife. Bill nonetheless insists on revenge. Ryan's gun is empty, so Bill tosses a bullet to him. He has just one bullet left now himself. Ryan turns his back and walks away, daring Bill to shoot him in the back. Bill fires, but it is only to kill a surviving outlaw. A grateful Ryan then watches as he mounts his horse and rides away.

Mini Drogues (Nikki Reed) is a clever and adventurous high school senior who is bored with her life. Mini prizes her "unique experiences" (she calls them "firsts"). For excitement, and to add to her list of firsts, Mini decides to try being a call girl. Her first client, however, has a guilty conscience and can't carry through with the act, which disappoints Mini. Her second client is decidedly more exciting: her stepfather Martin (Alec Baldwin). Martin is initially shocked when he learns of her identity (he initially blindfolded himself during intercourse per Mini's request), but soon a torrid love affair blossoms between the two.

In order to be together, Mini and Martin concoct a plan to have Mini's mother Diane (Carrie-Anne Moss) declared insane. When their plan fails, Mini convinces Martin to murder Diane, despite his initial resistance to the idea. They attempt to make it appear that Diane committed suicide, but they soon attract the attention of a detective (Luke Wilson) who believes that Mini and Martin killed her. A nosy neighbor, Mike (Jeff Goldblum), is sexually obsessed with Mini, and when Martin learns that Mini had gone to Mike's house and had received sexual pictures from him, he and Mike get into a fight. Mini arrives to find Martin standing over the neighbor, ready to beat him into unconsciousness, and when the police arrive they arrest Martin.

Mini visits Martin in jail and admits that the sexual pictures sent were actually from her in order to get Martin to think that the neighbor sent them. She also reveals that she assumed the police would eventually believe he killed Diane (since he was the more likely perpetrator). Mini, therefore, ends up getting away with murder, and inherits her mother's fortune. The film ends with Mini giving a valedictorian speech, even though she is a C student; the school gave her straight A's out of sympathy for her mother's death. She offers advice to the graduating class about how to live a good life, that perversely alludes to her crimes without making her look too suspicious. The detective is present at the speech, clearly still suspicious of Mini, but knowing that he will probably never be able to prove that she was guilty of murdering her mother.

Shawn Spencer (James Roday) has never kept a job for more than 6 months. He helps the Santa Barbara Police Department prove a man guilty, using his keen powers of observation and his near perfect photographic memory he obtained as a kid. Detectives Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) and Lucinda Barry (Anne Dudek) take Shawn into questioning, where Shawn claims to have obtained the information psychically. The police let him go with no proof to disprove the claim. On his way out, Shawn is asked for help by Chief Karen Vick on a high-profile kidnapping case. The investigation into the kidnapping of Camden McCallum, sole male heir to the McCallum fortune, is stalled. She believes Shawn's psychic powers can help solve the case. Shawn takes advantage of this, realizing a new career has just fallen into his lap.

He visits his childhood friend Burton "Gus" Guster (Dulé Hill), a pharmaceutical representative. Shawn decides to get Gus involved. Gus is reluctant, but eventually gets involved with the McCallum case. Shawn and Gus find out that about 18 months before, Camden had straightened up his usual party boy act. They learn Camden never did anything without his dog, and he disappeared from a park along with the dog. Shawn realizes Camden wasn't kidnapped, he disappeared. Exactly 18 months before, Mr. McCallum threatened to cut Camden out of the inheritance if he didn't straighten up. Camden also stopped hanging around with his close friend, Malcolm Orso. Camden and Malcolm were planning a ransom.

Shawn and Gus check out Orso's cabin, where they find Camden's "missing" dog. Shawn goes back to the cops to convince them he had a psychic vision of Orso's cabin. The police go inside the cabin and find both Camden and Orso dead in an apparent suicide murder situation. Shawn takes a quick look at the room, and he is not convinced. Especially because Mr. McCallum had a cut on his wrist that could be a dog bite. Shawn visits his estranged father, Henry (Corbin Bernsen). Henry says Shawn's powers are getting soft and he's trusting people he shouldn't be. Shawn then suspects Camden's sister, Katarina.

Katarina wasn't involved, but her bag was. At one time it had to have carried the money. One of the McCallums tried to pay the ransom, but something must have gone wrong. Shawn and Gus confirm that it was Mr. McCallum that tried to make the ransom. McCallum saw Camden inside Orso's cabin. During the ensuring argument, Camden fell, hit his head, and bled to death. McCallum has no choice but to shoot Orso to cover his tracks and make it look like Orso murdered Camden then committed suicide. On his way out, McCallum was bitten by Camden's angry dog. Shawn proves himself to the police by explaining and proving a "vision" of dog bite medication in McCallum's medicine cabinet that Gus actually saw when he was going to the bathroom. McCallum is arrested. Shawn and Gus have solved their first case and open their own private detective agency, Psych.Pilot (#1_1001) p. 2

The story is narrated by the unnamed wife of an independently wealthy theoretical physicist named Lancelot Stebbins. Stebbins is a bitter man who feels frustration at his lack of fame in his chosen field, and after twenty-five years of marriage, his wife is increasingly unhappy with the state of affairs. At one point when she had remarked that he could at least expect some fame when his obituary appeared, Stebbins responded by screaming that he would never get to read it, and then spitting at her.

One morning, Stebbins announces that he has made a discovery that will ensure his lasting fame as a physicist. He gives his lab assistants a month's vacation to ensure that he will not have to share the credit with them, then enlists his wife's help. In the laboratory, Stebbins shows his wife an iron crucible with a white mouse in it. Stebbins then creates a second crucible and mouse by creating a duplicate of them five minutes into the future and then transporting the duplicates back into the present. The mouse in the duplicate crucible, however, is dead. After five minutes, the duplicate crucible and mouse disappear, leaving only the original.

Stebbins plans to create a duplicate of himself by the same process. The duplicate will be dead, of course, and Stebbins plans to have his wife announce his death. After his funeral, he will announce to the world that he is still alive and that his apparent death was the result of his discovery. The surrounding publicity will ensure that Stebbins will always be remembered for his discovery. He warns his wife that if anything goes wrong with his plan, he will kill her.

Stebbins carries out his plan. He creates a duplicate of himself three days in the future, then brings it back to the present, where it falls dead to the floor. Stebbins and his wife move the body to a room in the laboratory that has been arranged to look as though a reaction involving potassium cyanide got out of control. Stebbins then hides in another room with a three-day supply of food and water while his wife calls a doctor. The doctor calls the police, who rule the death an accident and leave. Mrs. Stebbins then notifies the media, and several reporters come to the laboratory, where she gives them information about how wonderful and brilliant Stebbins was.

Stebbins reads his obituaries with relish, and begins planning a career as the Great Man of temporal studies, to his wife's dismay. Per his instructions, she has the dead duplicate brought to the laboratory and displayed in an open casket. On the third day, the body in the casket disappears on schedule, and Stebbins has his wife make him a cup of coffee to celebrate. Mrs. Stebbins puts cyanide in the coffee instead of sugar, killing Stebbins, and she puts his body in the casket in place of the duplicate and proceeds with his funeral. She feels no remorse about his murder; after all, he did have the satisfaction of reading his own obituary.

The play is about Slim and Cavale, two aspiring rock stars living in sin together. Cavale kidnapped Slim at gunpoint and held him captive in her motel room for an unspecified amount of time; the two have fallen in love despite that he has a wife and child in Brooklyn. Unable to move, yet at complete unrest, Slim swings from blaming Cavale for the disaster that is his life to begging her to tell him stories about French poets. Cavale is a former mental patient of some kind. She remembers electric shocks and having to wear metal plates around her club foot when she was younger. She also muses about playing the ugly duckling as a child, being forced into the role without even the satisfaction of emerging as a beautiful swan at the end. The two call on an imaginary Lobster Man for sustenance and entertainment. It theorizes that the American Dream does little more for the individual besides spoil his happiness. The title of the play comes from the expressed idea that modern Americans were looking for a 'saint with a cowboy mouth'. Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger were proposed as erstwhile candidates for this role.

In 1860 Baltimore, Benjamin is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man, already capable of speech. His father Roger invites neighborhood boys to play with him and orders him to play with children's toys, but Benjamin obeys only to please his father. At five, Benjamin is sent to kindergarten but is quickly withdrawn after he repeatedly falls asleep during child activities.

At the age of 18, Benjamin enrolls in Yale College, but is sent home by officials, who think he is a 50-year-old lunatic. When Benjamin turns 20, the Button family realizes that he is aging backwards.

In 1880, when Benjamin is 20, his father gives him a control of Roger Button & Co. Wholesale Hardware. He meets the young Hildegarde Moncrief, a daughter of General Moncrief, and falls in love with her. Hildegarde mistakes Benjamin for a 50-year-old brother of Roger Button; she prefers older men and marries him six months later, but remains ignorant of his condition. Years later, Benjamin's business has been successful, but he is tired of Hildegarde because her beauty has faded and she nags him. Bored at home, he enlists in the Spanish–American War in 1898 and achieves great triumph in the military, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He retires from the army to focus on his company, and receives a medal.

In 1910, Benjamin, now looking like a 20-year-old, turns over control of his company to his son, Roscoe, and enrolls at Harvard University. His first year there is a great success: he dominates in football and takes revenge against Yale for having rejected him years before. However, during his junior and senior years he is only 16 years old, too weak to play football and barely able to cope with the academic work.

After graduation, Benjamin returns home, only to learn that his wife has moved to Italy. He lives with Roscoe, who treats him sternly, and forces Benjamin to call him "uncle." As the years progress, Benjamin grows from a moody teenager into a child. Eventually, Roscoe has a child of his own who later attends kindergarten with Benjamin. After kindergarten, Benjamin slowly begins to lose memory of his earlier life. His memory fades away to the point where he cannot remember anything except his nurse. Everything fades to darkness shortly after.

The play is set on a bare stage, with a single chair draped in a Mexican blanket for the speaker. The stage is essentially black, except for the blanket. The sole character is the speaker, who begins telling the story of a nameless man. The speaker then goes on to impersonate different people such as a mother, a worker, and a "voice to a Blind One". A highlight of the play is described as the "Hunger Dialogue" in the script, which involves a contradictory exchange between two characters (both played by the speaker). The voice for each character are made distinct from each other only by the tone the speaker uses for each.

As youths in Azusa, California, Vinnie, Carter, and Rosie pull off a racing scam, substituting winners for plodders and winning big bucks on long odds. When an official uncovers the scam, they set him up for blackmail.

The story jumps ahead for twenty years, when Carter and Rosie are married, successful racers in Kentucky, who are about to sell their prize stallion, ''Simpatico''. Vinnie is a drunk in Pomona. He decides to make a play for Rosie, and lures Carter to California, where he steals his wallet and heads for Kentucky with the original blackmail material. Carter begs Vinnie's friend, a grocery clerk named Cecilia, to follow Vinnie and get the material back.

In 1718, French puppeteer John Chandagnac sails to Jamaica on the British ship ''Vociferous Carmichael''. He aims to confront his uncle Sebastian, who has apparently stolen a fortune that rightfully belonged to John's father and could have prevented his poverty-induced death. On board, he meets an Englishwoman named Elizabeth Hurwood, who complains that her erudite father Benjamin has abandoned his natural philosophy work and begun studying dark magic with her lecherous physician Leo Friend. The pirate sloop ''Jenny'' menaces the ''Carmichael'', neutralizing its powerful cannons with vodun magic. Benjamin Hurwood and Friend begin shooting their fellow passengers, revealing them as allies of the pirates, as the assailants board and seize the ''Carmichael''.

The pirates allow the passengers to leave on a rowboat, except for Beth, whom Hurwood requires for a vodun ritual, and Chandagnac, enrolled into the crew after wounding pirate captain Philip Davies. Not fond of long words, the pirates change John's name to Jack Shandy. The pirates head for New Providence Island to refit the ''Carmichael'' for piracy. On the way, they are captured by the Royal Navy, but Shandy breaks them out, thus ingratiating himself with the pirates. On New Providence, Shandy develops a proficiency for cooking and learns about vodun: unlike in the Old World, magic is very strong in the Caribbean, and pirates hire ''bocors'' to channel ''loas'' for healing, attacking and protection. Male and female sorcerers control different kinds of magic. Shandy also meets a rambling old sorcerer named Sawney, and develops an affection for Beth.

Hurwood has concluded an alliance with Blackbeard to lead him to the fabled Fountain of Youth in Florida, a powerful source of magic that will make Blackbeard immortal and allow Hurwood to resurrect his late wife — a process which involves evicting Beth's soul from her body. Davies and Shandy join him, fighting through a hostile, sentient jungle on the way. Davies defends himself from a curse by tossing enchanted soil into the air; Shandy takes note and saves some soil for himself. Shortly after he returns from the Fountain, Shandy finds that Friend has seized the ''Carmichael'' and abducted Beth. He gives pursuit in the ''Jenny'', and fights off Friend's magical zombie crew, with assistance from the ghost ship ''Nuestra Señora de Lagrimas'', which Friend accidentally summoned along with the ghost crew. Davies is killed and Hurwood takes Beth for himself after defeating Friend in a wizards' duel.

Not knowing where to find Beth, Shandy becomes a drunken wreck and accepts the King's pardon from Woodes Rogers, along with most of the pirates on New Providence, while Hurwood assumes a new identity as Ulysse Segundo and begins pirating. Meanwhile, Blackbeard is killed by the Navy, and Shandy receives an education in magic from old Sawney (actually a 200-year-old Juan Ponce de León) and a vision he gets after using the Fountain of Youth soil during a fight. A survivor of Segundo's raids relates the mannerisms of his undead crew, and Shandy recognizes them as the old ''Carmichael'' crew. Hearing that Segundo was last seen heading for Jamaica, Shandy sails on the ''Jenny'', facing a storm and a mutiny on the way.

Using Sawney's cryptic tips—involving blood and the magic-dampening power of magnetized iron—he defeats Hurwood and destroys his wife's soul. In Jamaica, he barely escapes the Navy and fights his way to the house of Hurwood's accomplice, who turns out to be Sebastian. He frees Beth and makes his way to a harbor, where he is met by Blackbeard, now resurrected and assuming a new identity. Combining his male magic with Beth's female magic, he vanquishes Blackbeard and marries Beth. The book ends as he prepares for the voyage out of Jamaica.

Caspar Last uses his newly-created time machine to travel to 19th Century British Guiana in order to obtain the very rare British Guiana 1c magenta stamp. Last plans to sell the stamp, reap the profits, and thereafter never use time travel or let it be used by others. A shadowy group called the Otherhood buys his stamp and takes control of the time machine, which they wish to use to preserve the existence of the British Empire. In the new timeline, the British Empire survives as a dominant world power throughout the Twentieth Century.

Denys Winterset, a promising young official in the Colonial Service at Africa in the 1950s, travels the Cape to Cairo Railway where he meets a mysterious stranger, and is invited to join the Otherhood. Winterset is told that he must travel back to the beginning of the group in 1893 and assassinate its founder Cecil Rhodes. Otherwise, in the late 1890s, Rhodes will change his will and dissipate much of his fortune, the Otherhood will never come into being, and the original timeline will be restored.

In another timeline, a different manifestation of Winterset travels into the future, something previously outlawed by the Otherhood. There, he learns that excessive tinkering with the timelines has generated countless unintended changes. The citizens of this world ask Winterset to go back, prevent the previous Winterset from killing Rhodes, and restore the "true" timeline.

Meanwhile, the other Winterset has arrived in 1893 Cape Town and has no difficulty in gaining Rhodes' trust. At the moment of opportunity, a mysterious force (implied to be the future Winterset) prevents Winterset from pulling the trigger. The mission fails, trapping Winterset in the past. Winterset enters the service of Rhodes and witnesses first-hand the ugly and brutal side of Rhodes's independent colony-building. Later on, Winterset can only watch helplessly as "The Original Situation" reasserts itself, the world is convulsed by two World Wars and the second one is followed by the breakup of the British Empire.

In the final chapter, Winterset, a young man, now living in the "true" twentieth century history, enters the Colonial Service, now a doomed institution, with the Empire's colonies being ceded to new independent nations in Africa. He meets his older self in 1956 in Africa and learns of the truth of time-travel. He helps his older self to escape from Africa amid the chaos, and returns to London, where the story ends with their last meeting many years later.

Winterset notes in the ''Times'' newspaper "the sale of the single known example of the 1856 magenta British Guiana" stamp, known to have been owned in 1956 by the Otherhood, and realises that time-travel means that his story is still vulnerable to being re-written.

Dan Brooks (Warner Baxter) runs a paper-box factory for his father-in-law, J. L. Higgins (Walter Connolly), who owns most of the major business interests in Higginsville. Uninspired by his factory position, Dan devotes his time and energy to training his thoroughbred race horse, Broadway Bill, in hopes of returning one day to the world of horse racing. Dan is encouraged to follow his dream by his unwed sister-in-law Alice (Myrna Loy) and stable hand Whitey (Clarence Muse). One night at a family dinner, J. L. reports that sales are down in the paper box division and blames it on Dan's neglect of his work. When he orders Dan to sell the horse and focus on his factory job, Dan resigns and leaves Higginsville without his wife Margaret (Helen Vinson), who shows little sympathy for her husband.

With Broadway Bill in tow, Dan drives to the Imperial Race Track, where he reunites with former colleagues and enters his horse in the upcoming Imperial Derby. After barely scraping together the meager fifty-dollar entrance fee, Dan convinces Pop Jones to provide feed and shelter on credit, and then searches for a backer who can provide the five hundred dollar nominating fee. At a preliminary race, Broadway Bill bolts from the starting gate and is disqualified. Dan writes to his wife Margaret asking her to bring his pet rooster Skeeter, who has a way of calming the horse down. The rooster is delivered instead by young Alice, who is secretly in love with Dan. Alice decides to stay and help with the horse, despite Dan's objections. He is unaware of her feelings for him.

During a terrible storm, Broadway Bill catches a serious cold after being soaked by rain leaking through the old barn roof. Alice nurses the horse back to health, and then sells her fur coat and jewelry in order to raise the necessary nominating fee—telling Whitey to say he won the money shooting craps. The night before the derby, however, Pop Jones confiscates the horse because he was never paid for the feed and shelter, and when Dan tries to intervene, he is thrown in jail. Not even Dan's "princess" Alice can help him now.

Meanwhile, millionaire J. P. Chase innocently places a two-dollar bet on Broadway Bill at one-hundred-to-one odds to impress his pretty nurse. The bet is misinterpreted, and word soon gets out that the "smart" money is on Broadway Bill, making him the favorite. This pleases bookmaker Eddie Morgan, whose horse will benefit from the changing odds. To continue the betting and prevent Broadway Bill from being scratched, Eddie bails Dan out of jail, pays his bills, and arranges for top jockey Ted Williams to ride Broadway Bill in the derby. A grateful Dan is unaware that Eddie bribed Ted to prevent Broadway Bill from winning. During the race, Ted tries to rein in Broadway Bill, but the heroic horse ignores the jockey's instructions and runs to victory. After crossing the finishing line, Broadway Bill collapses and dies of a burst heart. After the funeral, Dan and Whitey leave town.

Two years later, J. L. announces to his family that since Margaret's divorce he has sold off most of his holdings and intends to sell the bank next. His announcement is interrupted when Dan arrives honking his car horn, demanding that J. L. "release the princess from the dark tower". A joyous Alice runs to join Dan, Whitey, and their two new thoroughbreds, Broadway Bill II and Princess. As they're preparing to drive away, J. L. leaves his family behind and runs after to join them.

Its focus is on Martin and Sally Cramer, whose twelve-year marriage is slowly disintegrating. He has become the stuffy headmaster of a fashionable Manhattan private school, while she clings to her dedication to the underprivileged and continues to teach in a ghetto public school. For him, their new high-rise apartment is a sign of their steady upward mobility; she is so unhappy with his need to earn and spend she moves all the antique furniture he has purchased to their first apartment on the Lower East Side. The growing chasm between them isn't helped by individual one-night stands, an unwanted pregnancy and consequent contemplation of abortion, an attempted mugging, and her racist cab driver father Joe Kaminsky.

Charles Richardson is a civil servant in his early 30s, working in the Department of Development in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he is an impetuous romantic. One day, he meets Laura Connolly in the filing department of his office, and it is love at first sight.

Laura is a married woman who has just moved out on her husband Jim, a log-home salesman. She is disillusioned by her own marriage and wants to find herself. Charles gathers his courage and asks her out. Soon, she moves in with him and seems happy, but starts having second thoughts. According to Laura, he loves her too much. "You have this exalted view of me, and I hate it. If you think I'm that great, then there must be something wrong with you."

Laura leaves Charles and goes back to her husband Jim. Sam, recently unemployed as a jacket salesman, moves in with Charles, who tries to grapple with the loss of Laura. Charles's mother, meanwhile, is an eccentric who has suicidal thoughts.

Charles begins to make efforts to win Laura back. Charles finds out from his secretary Betty that Laura has left Jim once again and is living in an apartment with a roommate. Charles confronts Laura, finally asking her to decide if they will have a future together.

The play revolves around a struggling New York artist, Arthur, who has a secret involving a certain pair of socks. His best friend, Howard, tries to help him alleviate this problem, by seeing his psychiatrist, Dr. Block, who has taken the pair of socks. Eventually Arthur's fiancee comes to his aid and faces off with the psychiatrist.

The play concerns a colonel who promotes a black officer solely based on race. The black officer finds out that the colonel has had a brief affair with a private's wife, and is torn between his desire to go unnoticed and his realization that he must do the right thing.

Inspired by the 1980s ''Ninja Gaiden'' series for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the 2004 version was originally set in a re-imagined game world based on another Team Ninja creation, the ''Dead or Alive'' (''DOA'') series of fighting games. However, interviews with Tomonobu Itagaki indicate that the Xbox games are prequels to the NES series and that both possibly share a single continuity.

''Ninja Gaiden'' is set in the game world of the ''Dead or Alive'' series. Located mainly in Japan and the fictional Western Asian nation of the Vigoor Empire, the game draws on Heian period structures for its Japanese locales—a ninja fortress and village set in the mountains. In contrast the Vigoor Empire, with its capital city of Tairon, is a blend of architectural types from around the world. European-style buildings display Arabic lettering, and the monastery in Tairon exhibits Gothic influences with a vaulted hall, pointed arches, and large stained glass windows. A hidden underground level features statues with the heads of cats, walls covered with carvings, hieroglyphics, Aztec pyramid and a labyrinth. This mix of styles was the result of Itagaki's refusal to constrain the game's creative process.

Characters

Ryu Hayabusa, the "super ninja", is the protagonist of ''Ninja Gaiden'', and the primary player-controllable character in the game. Itagaki believed that creating extra player characters might distract his team from focusing on Ryu's development, despite this, Rachel is a playable character in the Sigma version of the game. Ryu has a long history with Tecmo; he was the star of the 1990s ''Ninja Gaiden'' series, and has been part of the ''DOA'' roster since 1996. His roles in these games played a part in his popularity among fans and the video game industry. ''Ninja Gaiden'' provides a backstory to Ryu's appearance and character as seen in the ''Dead or Alive'' series, being set two years before the first ''DOA'' game.

Rachel is the leading female character, and tragic heroine of the game. She and her twin sister, Alma, are afflicted with a blood curse that turns humans into fiends. Believing that there is no cure for their condition, Rachel seeks to kill Alma to redeem her sister's soul. The relationship between the sisters and the Greater Fiend Doku, who cursed them, serves as a plot device to drive the game forward, with Rachel occasionally needing to be rescued by Ryu. Although not a player-controlled character in ''Ninja Gaiden'', in a few sections of the ''Ninja Gaiden Sigma'' remake she is controllable. Two other characters assist the player in the game. Ayane, a young female ninja and one of the ''DOA'' regular cast members, acts as a guide throughout ''Ninja Gaiden'' by supplying advice and objectives to the player. Muramasa, a bladesmith, has shops scattered throughout the game world where players can purchase useful items and upgrades for Ryu's weapons. Muramasa also gives quests and relates back-stories and other crucial information; for example, he tells Ryu how he can obtain the item required to upgrade his Dragon Sword to its full potential. Players have the option to customize the appearance of player characters, with selectable costumes for Ryu and hairstyles for Rachel.

Most of the enemies are fiends—humans changed into monsters by their blood curse. Three Greater Fiends lead their lesser brethren against Ryu, playing major roles in the game's plot: Alma, Rachel's sister, whose story forms a significant part of the game; Doku, Ryu's main antagonist, whose raid on Hayabusa village and theft of the Dark Dragon Blade comprise the main plot thread; and Marbus, lord of the fiend underworld who is responsible for the final set of challenges Ryu faces in the realm of the fiends before encountering the Vigoor Emperor.

Story

''Ninja Gaiden'''s story spans 16 chapters, each beginning and ending with a cutscene. At the start of the game, the player takes control of Ryu as he infiltrates the Shadow clan fortress. Ryu is there to visit his uncle, the clan leader Murai. During their chat, Ayane delivers news of a raid on the Hayabusa village. Fighting his way back to his village, Ryu encounters Doku, who has killed the Hayabusa shrine maiden Kureha and has taken the Dark Dragon Blade. Ryu is cut down by Doku with the stolen Blade, but he is brought back to life as a "soldier of revenge" by a falcon, the spiritual animal of the Hayabusa clan.

Seeking vengeance for Kureha's death, Ryu learns from Murai that the raiders were from Vigoor, so he stows away on an airship bound for the empire. Fighting his way through the streets of its capital city, Tairon, Ryu faces several bosses including the three Greater Fiends. He defeats Alma in a battle that wrecks the city, but leaves her to Rachel's mercy. Conversely, Rachel cannot bring herself to kill her sister, and instead is taken by Doku, who prepares to sacrifice her in a ritual to enhance Alma's power. With Alma's help Ryu rescues Rachel and destroys Doku's spirit, but with his dying breath Doku casts the blood curse on Ryu. The only way for Ryu to lift the curse is to kill the emperor, so he storms the palace, defeating Marbus who bars his way to the emperor's personal realm. Two successive boss fights must be completed to destroy the Emperor and reclaim the Dark Dragon Blade—once this is accomplished his realm starts to destruct. Ryu must then be maneuvered up a series of ledges to escape, but in the process he loses his grip on the Dark Dragon Blade.

The fallen Blade lands at the feet of a figure, the Dark Disciple, who has been shadowing Ryu throughout the game. Taking the Blade, the Disciple reveals himself to be the clan leader Murai. He admits that the raid on Hayabusa village was part of his plan to restore the Blade's evil power, using souls harvested by Ryu. Drawing on the Blade, Murai transforms himself, setting the stage for the final boss fight. Ryu defeats Murai and shatters the Blade with the True Dragon Sword. Victorious, Ryu turns himself into a falcon and flies to the Hayabusa village. In the game's final scene he places the Dragon Eye, used to enhance his sword, on Kureha's tombstone and disappears into the night. The story of ''Ninja Gaiden'' is continued in the sequels ''Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword'', ''Ninja Gaiden II'' and ''Ninja Gaiden 3''.

Two arms negotiators stroll in the woods above Geneva, Switzerland, in the late summer, away from the glare of the negotiating table. They are a Soviet diplomat, Andrey Botvinnik, age 57, and John Honeyman, age 45, an American negotiator. The two men eventually develop a relationship, although their personalities differ. Botvinnik is friendly and enjoys American culture, Honeyman is formal and idealistic.

Note: the play is suggested by a real-life incident, which occurred in 1982. "Negotiators Paul H. Nitze and Yuli A. Kvitsinsky left the official Geneva sessions for an unofficial "walk in the woods" and achieved a breakthrough, soon rejected by their Governments."

The young protagonist Willie Dunne leaves Dublin to fight voluntarily for the Allies as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, leaving behind his prospective bride Gretta and his policeman father. He is caught between the warfare playing out on foreign fields (mainly at Flanders) and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising.

The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005.

In a 2009 US National Public Radio interview, author R. L. Stine stated that ''A Long Long Way'' was one of the most beautifully written books he had ever read, and gave copies of the novel to friends and family to read.

Shawn Spencer (James Roday) buys a newspaper and walks back into a restaurant to find his seat taken. The girl in his seat introduces herself as Juliet O'Hara (Maggie Lawson). Shawn realizes she's a cop, and immediately after he does, she and several officers arrest a man at the bar. Later, Burton "Gus" Guster (Dulé Hill) is in the Psych office, watching the local spelling bee on TV. Shortly after Shawn enters the office, expected spelling bee champion Brandon Vu (Issey Lamb) collapses, to the shock of the audience. Shawn notices something wrong with Vu's inhaler, and realizes that Vu was intentionally harmed. They receive a phone call from interim police chief Karen Vick (Kirsten Nelson) asking them to investigate the bee. They interview Vu at the hospital, who tells them that his inhaler was not working during the competition. They begin individual interviews with the competitors, but discover no leads. While they are waiting between interviews, spellmaster Cavanaugh (Alex Bruhanski) experiences chest pain and falls over a railing to his death, in front of Shawn and Gus. The police write off his death as a heart attack; Shawn and Gus are skeptical, and break into Cavanaugh's booth to investigate.

Gus finds Cavanaugh's lunch, and believes that it is poisoned due to its unusual smell. Shawn takes it to his father, Henry Spencer (Corbin Bernsen), to have it analyzed. Henry demands that in return, Shawn must build a dog house he promised to make in 1989. Shawn agrees, and leaves. While riding back to the office, he is run off the road by a mysterious van. Shawn wakes up in the hospital, and after he gets out, Gus informs him that he discovered another fake inhaler. Shawn returns to Henry's house to finish the dog house. Henry confirms that the lunch was poisoned, and Shawn returns to the bee. He disguises himself as the new spellmaster in order to enter the booth, and discovers that Cavanaugh had found out that Miklous Prochazka (Richard Zeman) was helping his son (Alexander Calvert), a contestant in the bee, to cheat by spelling out his son's words to him in Morse code using electrical impulses that were transferred to his false inhaler. After the bee has finished, Shawn has a "psychic vision" where he reveals everything to the police, who arrest Miklous and his son.Spellingg Bee (#1_1002) p. 2

Russian Prince Mikail Alexandrovitch Ouratieff (Charles Boyer) and his wife, Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna (Claudette Colbert) flee from the Russian Revolution to Paris with the Czar's fortune, which he has entrusted to them for safekeeping. They keep the money in a bank, faithfully refusing to spend any of it for themselves. Then, destitute, they are forced to take jobs under false identities as butler and maid in the household of wealthy Charles Dupont (Melville Cooper), his wife Fermonde (Isabel Jeans), and their children, Helene (Anita Louise) and Georges (Maurice Murphy). After a shaky start, the servants gradually endear themselves to their employers. However, their secret is finally exposed when one of the guests at a dinner party, Soviet Commissar Gorotchenko (Basil Rathbone), recognises them.

''The World's Greatest Sinner'' introduces a frustrated insurance salesman and his family, Clarence (Carey), his wife Edna (Rowland), his daughter Betty Hilliard (Griffin), and their son, as well as Clarence's friend, Alonzo (Barretto).

Clarence Hilliard is dismissed by the manager in an insurance company due to Clarence's disregard for the 'scrape and screw' policy. Clarence confesses to Edna that he wants to become more than 'Clarence' and start a political career, but Edna falls asleep. Later, Clarence tells his horse and Alonzo about his ambitions to make humans immortal, and a plan that will make Clarence 'God'. After witnessing an ecstatic crowd at a rockabilly concert, Clarence decides to learn to play the guitar. With the encouragement of Alonzo, Clarence attracts the audiences with his new ideology; that an ordinary person who is now a superhuman being will live forever and become God. Gradually gaining his followers, Clarence proclaims himself 'God Hilliard' and creates a religious cult known as the Eternal Man's Party. In a meeting, the followers consider a few minorities as potential targets for their hatred, but God Hilliard proposes a new way of thinking on "a non-discriminatory basis". Eventually, one of the followers warns God Hilliard that nobody should exert too much power, or one will become a dictator.

God Hilliard finances the cult by seducing elderly widows out of their life savings. Meanwhile, Alonzo builds an image of God Hilliard by using false facial hair, trimmed to a soul patch. God Hilliard forms a band at the venue and performs a rockabilly song, with a spoken motif, 'take my hand', and his outrageous stripping. As he relaxes with a snake after his performance, his followers rebel against a man who berates them and threatens to call the police. The followers gather together, shouting "We want God". The followers later cause a riot, which includes destroying objects such as cars and buildings. God Hilliard meets an ex-follower who experiences a mental breakdown since he alienated his family in favour of following God Hilliard. Hilliard has little sympathy for the ex-follower's disconnection with his family, giving the ex-follower a gun and instructing him to commit suicide.

A bicyclist boy meets Betty and informs her that her father is in trouble, but she is in denial. In a discussion between Edna and God Hilliard, he demands that nobody should be on the top but himself, which alienates Edna. When Betty returns home, she is warned by God Hilliard that she should not tell anyone about his "business" if a guest comes in. God Hilliard's mother (de Carolis) arrives to his house for a visit, and questions what he has been doing for the past few days. God Hilliard tells her that he called himself "God", and his mother condemns this practice, which she views as sacrilege.

As the film progresses, God Hilliard sets up a concert tour in the same vein of his first concert appearance and attracts the attention of a political manager, who tells God Hilliard to give up the rockabilly career in favour of being a 'political threat' by smashing his guitar. With the help of the manager, God Hilliard seeks out the nomination for President of the United States, leading a political party named after his cult. Hilliard holds a press conference, but he is not satisfied with the reporters. The film cuts to scenes of God Hilliard seducing and kissing several women, including a 14-year-old minor, and his meeting with the followers of the Eternal Man's Party. God Hilliard tours nationwide in the United States. Despite his proposal that every human being will live forever, God Hilliard learns about his own mother's death during the tour. This death in the family disillusions him. Nonetheless, Alonzo and the members prepare God Hilliard's political speeches, and assure to God Hilliard that he and the party will win the presidency. Later, Alonzo tells God Hilliard that Edna wants to see him, but God Hilliard declines, citing his preoccupation with political matters. His followers inform him that the public is calling him an atheist, and he has to convince the public that he is not one. He leaves the duty of convincing the American public about his religious faith to Alonzo and the members of the cult, who instead tell the publicists that God Hilliard "is the only living creature that you can call a God".

Meanwhile, God Hilliard refuses to let Edna and their children attend a church and accuses Edna of indoctrinating their children. Betty hands God Hilliard the Bible, and he slaps her in retaliation. The incident causes God Hilliard's family to escape from him, and Hilliard enters a period of emotional crisis. His followers discover him crying on his desk. He apologizes to the followers and is left alone, as he strikes a piano note. God Hilliard then voices a challenge to God Almighty; if he is 'mightier than man', he will 'give up everything' for God Almighty. At a church, God Hilliard attends in disguise, but waits until every attendant has left the church. He then steals a piece of sacramental bread from the church. At his house, God Hilliard uncovers his stolen item and wonders what happens if the bread can or cannot bleed. God Hilliard proceeds to pierce the bread, but he joyfully discovers that the bread does not bleed. He then returns to the Eternal Man's Party building. A slime trail appears, which God Hilliard follows. While on the run, God Hilliard comes back to his house and slowly walks to his room. Affected by God Almighty's power, as he enters his room, God Hilliard is therefore defeated in a challenge.

Using reward money from the discovery of Vikram Szpirglas' pirate base, Matt Cruse is attending the Airship Academy in Paris. While travelling through a storm in the Indian Ocean, his training vessel is caught in a vertical draft revealing a large airship drifting at 20,000 feet. Deducing that it is the ''Hyperion'', a long-lost ship said to be carrying great riches, the captain steers towards it to attempt a boarding. However, Matt is forced to descend when the rest of the crew members are stricken with altitude sickness. Upon returning to Paris, Matt meets with Kate de Vries, his friend and object of affection, to discuss the ''Hyperion'''s billionaire owner Theodore Grunel. Kate announces that she plans to find "Grunel's treasure" using co-ordinates that Matt remembers in a special ship called a Skybreaker that will allow them to reach high altitudes safely.

Matt receives a request from a claimed descendant of Grunel. When they meet, the man reveals himself to be a criminal named John Rath and tries to force Matt to give up the co-ordinates. Matt escapes with a gypsy girl named Nadira who claims to have a key that works on the ''Hyperion'' and proposes her own plan to find it. Matt initially declines but changes his mind when he overhears a warm conversation between Kate and a wealthy acquaintance named Hal Slater. Matt and Nadira search for a Skybreaker named the ''Sagarmatha'' moored in Paris, but when they find it, they learn that Hal is the captain. Matt, Kate, Nadira and Kate's chaperone, Ms. Simpkins, hire Hal and his Sherpa crew to fly them to the ''Hyperion'' and promise Hal 80% of the gold they discover. Although Kate temporarily allays Matt's fears, he sees her develop an increasing rapport with Hal and becomes jealous. Matt begins to accept romantic advances from Nadira which culminates in a kiss between them in the crow's nest.

Matt brings his co-ordinates to Dorje, the First Mate, who factors in the wind speed to calculate the ''Hyperion'''s trajectory. This brings the ''Sagarmatha'' into "Skyberia", a cold and desolate area around the Antarctic. Dalkey, one of the pilots, traverses the outside of the ship to remove a rudder blockage and sees that it is a large squid-like creature. The creature electrocutes Dalkey with one of its tentacles and flies away under the propulsion of hydrium. Kate coins the term "aerozoan" for this species and observes more of them travelling the Antarctic skies. Mourning their lost member, the crew gives a night lookout shift to Matt when the ''Hyperion'' is closeby. He is unable to see it soon enough and the larger ship grazes the ''Sagarmatha'', precluding the possibility of towing it. Kate chastises Matt for damaging the ship as their relationship continues to falter.

Hal, Kate, Matt and Nadira board the ''Hyperion'' and enter the vaults using Nadira's key. They find small pieces of taxidermy, which Kate carries back to the ''Sagarmatha'', as well as some larger ones including the intact body of a yeti. In a room called the engineerium, they find a large key-activated machine that produces heat and a glass chamber housing the limp bodies of four aerozoans. No longer hiding that he has gone into debt, Hal raids the bedroom of the frozen Theodore Grunel and blows open his safe. When Matt tries to read a set of blueprints he finds in a canister, Hal angrily objects and sends the canister into one of the ship's pneumatic tubes. With Hal consumed by his lust for gold, the others read Grunel's diary and see frequent mention of a powerful enemy named "B". They dismiss this as a product of Grunel's diseased mind. The four climb out of the hatch but its connection to the ''Sagarmatha'' breaks under the wind and they are forced to spend the night on the ''Hyperion'' while low on food and oxygen reserves. Matt tries to comfort Kate but she lashes out and reveals that she knows about him kissing Nadira. Matt apologizes and Kate refers to Hal as "a bully", leading to a reconciliation between the two.

That night, the travellers learn that the machine they are using for heat is "Grunel's treasure"; a fuel cell capable of producing vast amounts of hydrium rather than gold. They realize that its design is inspired by the aerozoans in the adjacent chamber. While they search for the blueprints, one of the aerozoans comes back to life and breaks through the glass, forcing them to flee the engineerium. Before they can regroup, John Rath's airship, having pursued them all along, arrives and shoots down the ''Sagarmatha''. From their hiding place, Hal, Kate, Matt and Nadira hear the ship being boarded by Rath's pirates and their employer Barton who goes by "B". Barton reveals that, as the head of the aruba consortium, he plans to maintain his monopoly by destroying Grunel's invention along with the blueprints. Before Barton can destroy the blueprints, the four of them split up and Matt is able to find the canister. After he places it in Hal's backpack, the pirates announce that they have taken Kate as a hostage.

Leaving Hal to tend to Nadira, who is suffering from altitude sickness, Matt sneaks into the engineerium and sees that the floorboards are concealing a fortune in gold bullion. Matt shoots the glass to free the remaining three aerozoans and escapes with Kate during the distraction. The aerozoans kill Barton and all of the pirates except for Rath who decides to scuttle the ''Hyperion'' before anyone can leave with the blueprints. As the ship explodes, Hal, Kate and Matt carry Nadira to the hangar where there is a pedal-powered ornithopter to facilitate their escape. Matt takes Hal's backpack in order to use the dynamite to blow open the hangar doors. Another explosion ejects the ornithopter from the ''Hyperion'' before Matt can climb aboard and he narrowly escapes with the help of a wingsuit.

The four make it back to the ''Sagarmatha'' having been repaired by Dorje and Ms. Simpkins. When they are unable to find Grunel's blueprints, Matt confesses that they were in the backpack Hal tossed to him. Hal berates Matt for not holding onto the backpack and not salvaging gold from the engineerium when he had the chance. He dismisses Kate's protests and says that her focus on pleasures other than money has ruined him. Matt and Kate excuse themselves and head to the hangar of the ''Sagarmatha''. They soon find that their newly acquired ornithopter has a compartment on it holding 40 gold bars. Though intent on telling Hal, they decide to savour the moment first.

Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth (who goes by the name of Daisy) is sent from the United States to stay with her aunt Penn and her children, Daisy's cousins, on a remote farm in the United Kingdom during the outbreak of a fictional third world war of the 21st century. Though she is happy about moving away from her stepmother who is pregnant, Daisy is homesick at first. First meeting her 14-year-old cousin Edmond at the airport, Daisy calls him "some kind of mutt"; however, her view of Edmond changes after settling in. Arriving at the farm she also meets Edmond's twin brother Isaac, 9-year-old Piper, and Osbert, who is the eldest brother. Daisy's homesickness only lasts for a short while before she and her extended family become close, and Daisy begins to embrace her new home. Daisy soon finds herself falling in love with Edmond and, after realising that the affection is mutual, begins a relationship with him.

Aunt Penn travels to Oslo, where she is stranded after war breaks out. An unknown enemy occupies the UK. The war becomes increasingly difficult for Daisy and her cousins as it increasingly affects their lives, eventually leading to food shortages and lack of other resources. One day, the farm is taken over by soldiers who separate the boys from the girls by sending them away to live at separate homes, and then separate farms. Daisy and Piper are forced to put survival as their top priority and cannot look for the male members of their family. Gradually finding their way back home, the two girls learn the harsh consequences of war and wait for their family in the barn house. After the war ends, Daisy must deal with putting the pieces of her life back together and overcoming the terrible experience of war as she reunites with the forever changed members of her family, including a physically and emotionally scarred Edmond.

Near the end of the book, Daisy (who had been pulled back to the United States by her father) goes back to the UK to see Edmond and the rest. Edmond, who thinks Daisy has broken their promise of always being together, refuses to see her at first. However, he eventually accepts her once again. Instead of going back to the United States, Daisy continues to live with Edmond and the rest of the family in the UK.

A lonely lion is shown in a circus, where everyone is afraid of him apart from his friend, the eccentric and virtuous balloonist Oscar Diggs. One evening, Oscar Diggs takes Lion up on his balloon and gives him a Badge of Courage. A thunderstorm drags them to the Land of Oz and Lion falls from the balloon.

Lion comes across a living Oak Tree being harassed by flying monkeys. Lion frightens them off and the Tree thanks him. The Wicked Witch of the East appears, claiming that Oscar Diggs is her prisoner. She demands Lion find the Flower of Oz for her or he'll never see Diggs again. Tree explains to Lion that The Witch is bent on conquering Oz, but is prevented by the Flower.

Lion saves the fairy Starburst from drowning. Starburst and her friends tell Lion to go to a certain castle to find the Flower. Lion meets a springy teddy bear named Silly Oz-bul, who follows Lion to the castle, where they are confronted by a toy soldier named Captain Fitzgerald. They are joined by a young girl named Wimzik and her toy ballerina Caroline.

Finding out from Gloom about Lion's interference, the Witch teleports Fitzgerald to a dungeon. But while there, the captain learns from a flying monkey guard the Witch was lying about Diggs being her prisoner.

The friends come to a waterfall with a silver bridge to a floating island. Silly attempts to cross the bridge, which turns out to be an illusion. Lion saves him, from falling over the cliff and they come to the town of the Mini-Munchkins, who built the original Silver Bridge before it was destroyed by the Wicked Witch of the East. The bridge the group saw was just an illusion caused by the Mini-Munchkins' sadness and doubt. Wimzik inspires them to believe in themselves and not to give up, somehow breaking the Witch's spell over them and restoring the bridge.

Caroline's battery runs out just as the Witch returns and casts Caroline's unconscious body into a whirlpool. Lion and Wimzik save her. Wimzik's touch gives Lion extra strength and recharges Caroline.

Next, the group meets the Seamstress, an elderly enchantress who turns Silly and Caroline into quilt patches. Realizing the Seamstress is under the Witch's spell, Wimzik calmly talks her into remembering who she really is. The Seamstress gives them a petal she says came from the Flower of Oz. Lion gets a whiff and tracks it to a large garden encased in ice. When Wimzik touches the flower, the garden is instantly thawed and Lion realizes Wimzik is really the Flower of Oz.

The Witch and Gloom show up. Fitzgerald, having stowayed, reveals the Witch's deceit. A fight ensures. Lion takes the Witch's blast for Wimzik, nearly dying. But Wimzik sits on her throne, regaining her powers. Enraged, the Witch spitefully steals Lion's Badge of Courage and throws it to Gloom who destroys it. Wimzik defeats the Witch and destroys Gloom. Beaten, the Witch swears vengeance before vanishing.

Lion is sad to have lost his badge, but Wimzik explains his courage doesn't come from a badge, but from his brave and noble heart. Lion bids his friends goodbye as he must go find Oscar, but promises to come back someday.

The movie ends with Lion meeting Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and Toto, thus stepping out of his own story and into "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz".

By the year 2176, a magnetic storm has degaussed all recorded history, causing such valuable documents as the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to be lost. Three time travelers, Adam-11 (David Cassidy), Chanel-6 (Olivia d'Abo), and Heinz-57 (Geoff Hoyle) are sent back to July 4, 1776, to retrieve America's heritage, but due to an unnoticed time machine malfunction, end up in 1976 instead, during the United States Bicentennial. While attempting to carry their mission, the time travelers dress in period costume (e.g., tight bell bottom pants), attend EST, experience the Sexual Revolution, Pop Rocks, disco, long gas lines, the AMC Pacer, and even drug paraphernalia shops.

They are in turn pursued by Rodney Snodgrass (Liam O'Brien), a science whiz and UFO buff, who thinks they are aliens, and plans to use their UFO (their time machine) to win the Bicentennial Science Fair prize at his high school. His self-absorbed, disco-dancing brother, Eddie Trojan (Leif Garrett), pursues Chanel-6 for his own pleasure. Both are foiled by two dimwitted but good-hearted teenage friends, Tommy Sears and Chris Johnson (Steve and Jeffrey McDonald of Redd Kross), who help the time travelers repair their craft and return to 2176, with their 1970s artifacts and a copy of the Constitution, printed on a shirt which was bought off of an EST seminar attendee (Barbara Bain).

Part One: The Calling

The book begins two years after the Last Days. Ben lives with a callous man named Greg, who uses Ben's powers, which he calls "the Call", to attract game for hunting. Ben feels guilty about leading the animals to their death but faces a beating from Greg if he does not comply. When he finally escapes, he promises not to use the Call again. He breaks this promise less than a day later when he is pursued by a man on horseback. He shoots the horse causing it to fall and crush the man who dies slowly. Ben then realises there are people in the distance coming closer with guns. Ben runs for his life, fearing capture.

Ben decides to return to Sydney, where he once lived with his parents. He travels first on foot, then by bike, using mountain roads to avoid local gang activity. He is joined by a stray dog who would do anything for Ben, having become loyal as they grew close in their travels.

As he draws closer to his destination, he hears the Call of something wild and ferocious. When he reaches the city, only then he realizes that the wild Call is coming from Taronga Zoo. He then makes a hard decision to travel to Taronga Zoo to find out what creature could still be so wild and free in a zoo.

Part Two: The Trial

In Sydney, Ben is chased by a gang. The dog sacrifices itself to give Ben the opportunity to escape, but Ben is still captured. The gang takes Ben to Taronga Zoo, which houses another gang of survivors and is guarded by tigers and other predators. The gang wishes to break into the zoo and plans to use Ben as bait.

Inside, Ben is almost attacked by two tigers, Raja and Ranee. He is saved by Ellie, an Aboriginal girl who is in charge of the big cats. She takes him to the community leader, Molly, who allows Ben to stay after he proves that he can also round up and cage the cats. Ben quickly earns the trust of all of the animals except for Raja, the male tiger, who hates Ben for restricting his physical freedom.

Although Ben originally sees Taronga as an ideal community, he soon discovers that Molly is a ruthless and selfish leader. When the Sydney gang tries to break into the zoo, Molly divulges her plan to burn Taronga to the ground rather than let another gang occupy it. Ben and Ellie decide to act.

Part Three: The Answer

Ben convinces the rival gang that he wants to help them break in and they set a date for an ambush. During the next week, Ben and Ellie cut a hole in the outer fence and disguise it with ivy. On the day of the ambush, they set the animals free. The Sydney gang and the Taronga gang fight. Ben and Ellie are the only survivors.

Ben once again swears that he will no longer use the Call. When he is cornered by Raja, he keeps that promise. But Raja does not attack him; instead, he gives Ben a playful swat.

Raja and Ranee head towards the Blue Mountains and are followed by Ben and Ellie.

The story opens with a dinner party hosted by Mrs. Eleanor Maxie at Martingale, a medieval manor house in the (fictional) Essex village of Chadfleet. Mrs. Maxie's son and daughter, Stephen Maxie and Deborah Riscoe, are both at the party. Serving at the party is Sally Jupp, an unmarried mother with an infant son, who was employed by Mrs. Maxie.

Deborah later goes to London and visits Stephen at the hospital where he works and sees her brother talking with Sally. Stephen says that Sally brought him some of their terminally ill father's tablets, which she found on old Mr. Maxie's bed. Stephen suspects that Mr. Maxie manages to deceive his devoted servant Martha, pretending to take his tablets when he is simply hiding them in his bed. On the day of St. Cedd's church fete, Sally announces that Stephen has asked her to marry him. The following day, Martha complains that Sally has overslept again. On entering the room, Sally's lifeless body is found. Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh and Detective Sergeant Martin arrive and begin their investigation.

It emerges that Sally had been secretly married to James Ritchie, who has a successful job in Venezuela, but he returns to England after her death. Sally had blackmailed her uncle (who unbeknownst to her had spent her modest trust fund) into giving her 30 pounds. She had pretended to be an unmarried mother because revealing the marriage would jeopardise her husband's job and she liked to 'play with people'. She revealed Stephen Maxie's proposal of marriage for the same reason, although it is notable that she had not accepted it.

Martha had been regularly drugging Sally at night so that she would oversleep, be discredited, and eventually dismissed. It is Mrs. Eleanor Maxie who eventually confesses to the murder of Sally Jupp after Dalgliesh reveals everyone's movements on the night. It is clear, through a process of elimination, that only she could be the culprit.

The novel ends with a meeting between Adam Dalgliesh and Deborah Riscoe. It is hinted that a relationship will develop between Adam and Deborah.

The episode opens with the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard unit in the church hall, waiting for Mainwaring to give a presentation. The platoon is disgruntled at being shut in on a fine summer evening and, led by Frazer, they begin a chorus of "Why are we waiting", which sounds like O Come All Ye Faithful. Mainwaring enters and tells them to be quiet. He begins to give them a farcical slideshow entitled "Know your enemy", which contains exaggerated drawings of German infantrymen, panzer crew and parachutists. The show is narrated languidly by Wilson, who insists on wearing a monocle. Mainwaring interjects with stereotypical comments such as: : "Note the eyes – close together, mean, shifty – that's typically Nazi" : "Look at the thick red bull neck, watch out for that" : "He has no lobes on his ears, a well known criminal trait"

Jones is attempting to operate the projector, much hampered by the Verger, who is there to prevent any "damage to the Vicar's apparatus". Godfrey is asleep, whilst Walker and Pike interject with silly questions. Hodges arrives, and accuses them of looking at dirty pictures, and Jones finally messes up, showing a picture of a topless Zulu woman from the Vicar's slide collection, "Light into Darkest Africa", much to Hodges' delight and Mainwaring's discomfort.

Afterwards in the office, Mainwaring threatens to stop Wilson wearing the monocle, but Wilson responds by threatening to tell everyone that Mainwaring wears arch supports for his feet. Frazer enters, and not only tells Mainwaring the lecture is a waste of time, but consults notes he has made and reminds Mainwaring of other similar irrelevant lectures, such as "Why the Germans don't play cricket" and "How to send Hitler a poisoned carpet" (because he chews the rug when angry), and observes that Mainwaring has wasted 438 hours on "useless blather". Naturally, Mainwaring is furious at Frazer's insubordinate behaviour. He consults the Home Guard manual and discovers a potential solution to the problem. Back on parade, he challenges Frazer to take command of the platoon for a week. To Mainwaring's surprise, Frazer agrees.

Once Frazer is in charge, he swiftly sacks Sergeant Wilson for discrepancies in the platoon stores, and is so rude to Jones (calling him a "wooly-minded old ditherer") that he resigns. Mainwaring has been banished to the broom cupboard, where he is soon joined by a furious Wilson and a distraught Jones. Mainwaring observes that Frazer is playing into their hands by "antagonizing" the rest of the platoon, reasoning that if nobody will serve under Frazer, "he's done for". They are interrupted by Pike, who reveals that he is the platoon's new lance corporal, having been promoted by Frazer, due to Pike's "hidden qualities" of "drive, tenacity, and leadership". Just as the other three men are recovering from the shock, they are interrupted by Wilson's replacement, the newly-promoted Sergeant Walker, who assumes the demeanour of a hard-nosed NCO, complete with swagger stick, and proceeds to tell the now-Privates Wilson and Jones that they can go home (to "recuperate"). He also passes on a request from Frazer: that Mainwaring should turn over his own swagger stick and leather gloves which infuriates Mainwaring due to him angrily asking "How dare he?"

Back in Mainwaring's office, Frazer is having a chat with Godfrey. Initially, Frazer appears sympathetic to Godfrey's age and health-related problems, telling him that if he ever feels unwell, he will be excused without any trouble. After a grateful Godfrey thanks him, Frazer changes his manner, sternly telling Godfrey that if he ''does'' decide to come on parade, he will receive no special treatment, and will have to do what the other members of the platoon do "or take the consequences". Just then, a Scottish officer, Major-General Menzies, arrives. A puzzled Godfrey departs, and Frazer and Menzies discuss the state of the platoon as it currently stands. Pleased at finding a fellow Scot in command, Menzies invites Frazer to play the bagpipes to pipe in the haggis at a forthcoming regimental dinner. Frazer agrees, though, as Menzies departs, he calls Frazer "Mainwaring", revealing that he is unaware that Frazer has temporarily replaced Mainwaring as commander of the platoon.

Discussing his arrangement with the Colonel in the mess, Menzies tells the Colonel to organise the dinner, and the Colonel (who, unlike Menzies, knows Mainwaring) expresses his surprise that Mainwaring is Scottish and can play the pipes.

Back in the church hall, Frazer's tenure has ended. Mainwaring is quick to re-establish control and forget about the whole incident, although both Walker and Pike speak up in favour of Frazer, while Jones remains loyal to Mainwaring. Frazer attempts to tell Mainwaring about the commitment to pipe the haggis at the dinner, but Mainwaring does not give him a chance.

Later, Mainwaring and the platoon arrive at the regimental dinner. A sergeant appears and takes Mainwaring through the procedure. Finally, to Mainwaring's surprise, the sergeant presents him with some bagpipes. Expecting Mainwaring to be nonplussed, Frazer issues an ultimatum: "It was me he asked to play the pipes because he was impressed with my handling of the platoon. I'll play the pipes for you if you let me go into the dinner at the head of MY platoon". Mainwaring refuses, provoking Wilson to ask: "Are you absolutely sure you're doing the right thing?". Mainwaring eventually shoulders the pipes, and the platoon forms up, ready to lead the haggis in. Frazer predicts doom, but Mainwaring turns to Wilson and says,

:"I spent my honeymoon in a remote village in Scotland called InverGeechie [sic]. It was a wild and lonely place. The nights were long ... and there was nothing else to do."

To everyone's amazement, Mainwaring starts the pipes and, playing magnificently, leads the haggis party into the mess. Frazer is left outside, dumbfounded. He finally shouts: "I never doubted you for a moment, sir, never for a single moment! God forgive me!" and rushes in after the rest.

The world of ''Virtua Quest'' is one where many people shrug off reality, and instead spend their free time in the Nexus, a vast virtual universe. Sei is a cheerful guy who's been tapped by his friend, Hayami, into trying out the life of a hunter, one who collects data chips from the far-flung reaches of the Nexus and then sells them for cash. Sei, curious about the occupation, yet slightly intimidated by the dangers involved, reluctantly accepts after a bit of influence from Hayami, and the thought about the bike that they are trying to finish in time for the race in the real world. After completing the Hunter's test and a brief explanation from Hayami about the Hunter's License rankings (LoA, HiA, and ExA), Sei finds the server address for Curio City, and makes his way to the location.

Right after he had just arrived, a strange creature named Bit appears from his Hunter's Glove in a blaze of light and announces that he will be his navigator throughout the servers he visits. Sei is fine with this, now that Bit had explained his startling entrance, but not with the fighters that pursue him a few minutes afterward. Then a girl with aqua-colored hair approaches him and directs him to log out. Sei demands that Bit log out, but the command is not accessible.

The girl then tells him to go to a warehouse and find what he needs there, and tells him that he's "in this fight, no matter what. The only person that can defend you is yourself." She also tells him to head to a building, and that the root user, the one preventing his logout, is there. She informs him that defeating the root user will let him logout. She then disappears.

Sei heads to the warehouse, and falls through the glass ceiling. He meets a man that bears a vague resemblance to his father, and tells him that he may need to fight, questioning whether he considers to fight for himself or for others. Sei answers a baffled reply to this, and as to rid his anxiety, the man teaches him Sypnapse Break, a special technique. Once taught this, Sei is confident, and starts his Hunter journey.

As Sei makes his way through the server, he collects Virtua Souls and fights more attackers, eventually making it all the way through them and encountering the root user. At the top of the building, he comes across a blonde African American in a load of armor. Despite his buff appearance, Sei easily defeated the root user, thus granting him the opportunity to log out, as well as the other hunters.

Back at the Hunter's Guild, Sei finds Hayami, and asks him about Virtua Souls. Hayami tells him that they are like "ghost data", meaning that they're to the point that they don't exist. Finding this information useless, he asks the shopkeeper, and when her explanation isn't any help, he asks a man talking to his sister, and finally he reveals information: A man was rousing him for Virtua Souls, and he vanished in the Wild Corridor, yet another lost server. Sei gains the server address to the Wild Corridor, and he too vanishes in the location.

Arriving at Wild Corridor, Sei discovers that he cannot log out (again). He is dismayed, but accepts his situation. As he makes his way through Wild Corridor, he spies another Hunter who also appears to have Synapse Break. Sei is bewildered by this, but doesn't comment further. As he continues to make his way, gathering Virtual Souls as he goes, he eventually finds the three root users, who appear to be triplets, and defeats them.

The game continues on where Sei finds out more about Toka and Toka knows about the syndicate and actually knows more about Judgement Six and one of the leaders Moon is collecting Data from fighters in order to create Durals through fighting abilities in order to conquer the world. As the game progresses, Sei again meets a man who happens to be a Hunter with an ability that's far greater than Sei's and is also able to use Synapse Break. He finds out he's investigating something and is looking for some "Backup Data". He later finds out that Toka formerly worked for Judgement Six in which Toka explains is true and takes off crying. Later in the game the mysterious man explains more to Sei, that he investigated a group by the name of Judgement Six and he had a partner by the name of Raud who was killed by Judgement Six. Moon later came and divulged the mysterious man's name (Schatt). Schatt told Sei to leave and decided to fight Moon and his group alone.

Later in the game Sei became discouraged and came across Hayami again with the girl by the name of Fei and finds out that her brother Fan has been logging in to other servers just to find out he could log out. Later Sei is told in order to get into the server, he had to expand his level to HiA.

After Sei completes his "Advanced Hunter's Test", Sei's able to log into a much higher server, "Thai Phong Ruins".

After the game progresses a little more, Sei rescues Fan's brother Fei just as he is informed by Hayami that more kidnappers have been seen on Dong Qian Jie server. As Sei goes there he spots strong enemies and a specially made Bit. The special Bit kidnapped Bit. As Sei chased him down and rescue Bit and goes down the server stage a little further, Sei came across Toka only to find out she was interrogated by Moon the leader of Judgement Six. Sei tried to stop Moon but was stopped by a special made Schatt. Sei is punched to the ground. Moon escaped with Toka. Schatt also escaped only to find out Sei is once again surrounded by more enemies. As the game progresses, Sei comes across Schatt once again and notices Schatt also has the power to use Virtua Souls (the one he uses is Lau Chan's). The two had a showdown. He defeated Schatt only to found out the real Schatt was possessed by Moon earlier in the game which he'd lost to Moon. Schatt forcibly logged off (which is supposed to be a Virtua was of death in the Virtua Quest game) just to found out after Sei logged off. He was informed once again that Judgement Six is full-on invading multiple servers leading to the final battle. Sei uses Virtua Soul and fought Lau Chan from the Virtua Soul he gained from Schatt earlier during the fight with Schatt.

Chilly is just a guy from the streets with a talent for break-dancing. When his wicked moves catch the eye of an industry pro, Chilly finds his dreams of fame and fortune coming true, for better or for worse.

In the year 2069, humanity begins to terraform and colonize the Solar System. In order to protect the colonies and maintain law and order in the solar system, the Earth Federation Government (EFG) was created. Soon, many settlers started to resent the EFG and its sphere of influence, straining the relationship between the central government and the colonies.

While a strained peace was being forged between Earth and the colonies, a race of non-human creatures known as Deathcula invaded the System in 2084. Without provocation, they attacked the colonies and killed many of the colonists. The EFG quickly realized that the Deathcula were technologically superior and their forces were hopelessly outmatched. In order to have a chance at survival, Dr. Charles Louvre developed a transformable starship known as the Bismarck.

Knowing that an advanced team of specialists were required to operate the Bismarck, four individuals came together and were charged with keeping the outer colonies safe from further Deathcula attacks.

Two poor boys from London, Ted, an abused child and Jackie, the son of a prostitute run away to Liverpool in an attempt to stowaway on a ship bound to Jamaica. Arriving in Liverpool tired and hungry, they steal a suitcase which they hope to pawn for money to provide food. The owner of the suitcase, a wealthy shipping businessman, alerts the police and the boys are subsequently caught, scolded and sent home. Recognizing their dire life at home, a friendly superintendent tells the boys that many ships leave here for Jamaica.

"The Brothers" is a story of two valleys, Gleann Gleatharan, ruled by Cinnfhail of Dun Gorm, and Gleann Fiach, ruled by Sliabhin of Dun Mhor. Separating the two valleys is a Sidhe-wood, which Dun Gorm respectfully keeps out of, but in which Dun Mhor defiantly hunts. The Sidhe have blessed Gleann Gleatharan with peace and good fortune, but cursed Gleann Fiach with bad luck and misery. Sliabhin is also cursed by the Sidhe for committing fratricide, killing his older brother Gaelan to seize Dun Mhor and Gaelan's queen, Moralach. Moralach had two children, Caith and later Brian, both during Gaelan's reign, but Caith was exiled soon after birth to live with Gaelan's cousin Hagan of Dun na nGall. After Sliabhin became king, Moralach hanged herself.

Caith grows up believing that Gaelan is his father and when he learns that Sliabhin murdered Gaelan, and that he has a younger brother, now in Sliabhin's hands, he returns to revenge his father's death and rescue Brian. As he passes through Gleann Gleatharan, he is told that Sliabhin raped Moralach and is his real father; this increases his resolve to rid Dun Mhor of Sliabhin and free Brian. Cinnfhail, uneasy that Caith's meddling may disturb Gleann Gleatharan's peace, reluctantly lends Caith his fay horse Dathuil. Dathuil takes Caith straight to the Sidhe wood where he meets Nuallan, of the Sidhe Fair Folk, and Dubhain, a mischievous shapeshifting pooka. They bargain with Caith, who ends up losing everything he has, including Dathuil, in exchange for their help in overthrowing Sliabhin and freeing Brian. Caith and Dubhain, alternating between a black horse and a boy, set off for Dun Mhor.

Meanwhile, Cinnfhail's son, Raghallach, rides to the Sidhe-wood to find and assist Caith, but is stopped by Nuallan. At Dun Mhor, Caith and Dubhain are let in and taken to Sliabhin, who shows them Raghallach, captured and tortured. But a discrete smile from Raghallach reveals to Caith that it is actually Nuallan in disguise. Caith and Dubhain themselves are imprisoned, and Caith bargains away his scruples for help from Dubhain in freeing them and rescuing Brian. Dubhain, as the horse, takes Caith through the locked door and down to a cellar containing Brian locked in a cage, a shackled and disfigured Raghallach/Nuallan, and Sliabhin. The chains holding Raghallach suddenly fall away and Nuallan escapes with Brian, leaving Caith to confront Sliabhin. Caith kills Sliabhin, escapes the dun and is taken by Dubhain back to the Sidhe-wood.

In the wood, Caith sees a group of Fair Folk around a sleeping Brian, but they will not let Caith near his brother. Nearby Raghallach sits on his horse, frozen-in-time, and Nuallan puts Brian in Raghallach's arms, letting Raghallach believe that he rescued Brian from Dun Mhor. Nuallan then takes Caith into Faery from where Caith looks down on Dun Gorm and sees an older Brian playing happily. Nuallan offers to take Brian's happiness and give it to Caith, but Caith refuses. Caith is returned to the wood where he is cursed with torment for the rest of his life for committing patricide. Not permitted to return to Dun Gorm or Dun Mhor and with nowhere else to go, the wayward Dubhain appears at his side and offers to be his companion. Caith reluctantly agrees.

Philocrates and his slave Tyndarus, from the Greek district of Elis, have been captured in war with another Greek region, Aetolia. They are now prisoners and slaves bought by Hegio, a well-to-do resident of Aetolia, who is planning to trade them for his son, Philopolemus, who has been captured in Elis. Pretending to be each other, the supposed slave Philocrates is sent to make the trade, while Tyndarus risks his life by remaining.

A friend of Philocrates named Aristophontes has also been captured, and Tyndarus’ efforts to fool Hegio by claiming that Aristophontes is insane are unsuccessful. When Hegio finds out from Aristophontes that he has been deceived, he sends Tyndarus to the quarries for backbreaking labor. Declaring that dying courageously is not an everlasting death, Tyndarus tries to convince Hegio that his own loyalty to Philocrates is right.

Comic relief is provided by a sponger, Ergasilus, looking for a free dinner from Hegio. He has learned that Hegio's son Philopolemus has returned to Aetolia, and he uses this knowledge to get a free meal from Hegio, then proceeds to go wild in the kitchen. Hegio's former slave Stalagmus, who stole Hegio's other son when he was four years old, also arrives on the scene and confesses his iniquity. Eventually everybody discovers that Tyndarus is that stolen son, causing Hegio to realize he should have treated him better when he was his captive slave. Hegio and his two sons, Philopolemus and Tyndarus, are reunited in a happy ending.

This film is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Othello''. Othello, a Moor who has secretly married his native Venetian lover Desdemona, is assigned to fight against a Turkish invasion attempt on the island of Cyprus. During the battle, he was accompanied by his faithful lieutenant, Cassio. When Othello finally arrives at Cyprus, however, the Turkish invasion fleet has been wrecked by a storm, and, reunited with Desdemona, who had volunteered herself to go with him, leads his men and the people of Cyprus in a celebration.

Iago, Othello's trusted companion and ensign, envies Othello's prosperous life and Cassio's lieutenancy and, convinced that both of them had slept with his own wife, Emilia, plans to ruin both by manipulating Othello into believing that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio and is pregnant with Cassio's child. He arouses Othello's suspicion and jealousy gradually and then plants Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's clothing for Othello to find. When he does, he is convinced of Desdemona's infidelity and, in a rage, decides to kill both her and Cassio.

Othello smothers Desdemona, who dies just as Emilia enters the bedroom. Emilia then tells Othello the truth behind Iago's lies and he realizes what he has done. The authorities and Othello turn on Iago, and, after a running fight, capture and beat him. In despair, Othello stabs and wounds Iago. Othello then kills himself, and Iago is taken away to be tortured and executed.

Mike Lane has big plans for a business of his own but pays his bills through a series of odd jobs, most notably performing as the star stripper at Xquisite Strip Club in Tampa, a club owned by Dallas, who has dreams of creating an "empire" of strip clubs.

Mike soon meets 19-year-old Adam, a recent college dropout looking for a construction job. Mike takes Adam under his wing and encourages him to begin stripping at Xquisite. Mike is introduced to Adam's sister Brooke. Despite his on-and-off relationship with a woman named Joanna, Mike finds himself attracted to Brooke and promises to look after Adam.

Adam falls further into the excessive lifestyle of the Xquisite dancers, using drugs and having sexual encounters with many clients. When Dallas announces he has a plan to move their act to Miami, Mike confides in Brooke that he is tiring of the lifestyle and wants to get a small business loan to pursue his dream of opening a custom furniture business. The bank declines his loan application and Mike realizes that he has to stay in the business to continue to pay his bills. Mike later attends a hurricane party at Dallas' house, where Adam becomes part of a scheme created by Tobias, Xquisite's DJ, to sell drugs to Xquisite's clients, and is eventually given a package of ecstasy. Adam begins using drugs regularly, and Mike notices more of Adam's reckless behavior, to the chagrin of Brooke, who is relying on Mike to protect him.

A few days later, Mike and Adam perform for a private party at a sorority house where Adam brings the package of drugs with him. At the party, Adam gives a young woman an ecstasy pill, causing a brawl between Adam and the woman's boyfriend. Mike and Adam are forced to flee without the drugs, which Adam says were worth $1,000. They also do not collect their payment, which infuriates Dallas. After the next night's show, Mike and Adam take drugs and go to a club. Adam vomits and passes out; Brooke finds him on Mike's floor the next morning. Brooke angrily confronts Mike about his lifestyle, and ends her friendship with him. Tobias and his suppliers break into Mike's house looking for Adam, revealing that the drugs were actually worth $10,000. Mike gives up most of his life savings to pay Adam's debt in full.

Later, before the dancers' final performance at Xquisite, Mike decides he has had enough. Knowing that Dallas has no loyalty to any of them and is driven by greed, Mike leaves the club through the back. After realizing Mike is not coming back, Dallas promotes Adam to replace Mike as lead dancer. Mike drives to Brooke's apartment and tells her he has quit stripping. She has learned what he did for Adam, and she invites him to join her for breakfast. She playfully asks what they can do until morning, and then kisses him.

The plot focuses on the homeless character 'Wizard' and his battle with a malignant force from his forgotten past. In order to survive, Wizard must rely on his powerful gift of 'Knowing'. This allows him to know the truth of things, to receive fortunes and to reveal to people the answers to their troubles. Aiding him in his battle for survival is the enigmatic 'Cassie' and several other people from the streets.

The game begins with a mysterious drone attacking shipping in the system. When Burrows lands on the planet New Detroit, a man hires him and gives him a mysterious artifact. On his return, Burrows finds the man is dead. Burrows seeks information about the artifact, eventually meeting Dr. Monkhouse, a xenoarchaeologist on Palan.

Monkhouse tells Burrows the artifact was made by an ancient technologically advanced race, the Steltek. The artifact is half of a map; Monkhouse has the rest. Burrows agrees to explore the area in the map.

Burrows locates a powerful weapon on an ancient ship and mounts it on his own. When he leaves, a mysterious drone follows him, destroying everything it encounters. Burrows is asked by the Confederation to lure the drone into an ambush, so it can be destroyed.

Burrows then encounters a Steltek scout, looking for the last traces of their technology in order to remove them. The scout energizes the ancient weapon in exchange for the location of the ship where Burrows found it. It then remains for Burrows to destroy the dangerous drone.

In the ''Righteous Fire'' expansion, the Steltek weapon is stolen from his ship while Burrows is docked. He travels to Oxford, where he meets someone who helps him in return for flying missions against the Retros, a homicidal band of religious extremists led by a man named Mordecai Jones. The informant adds that Governor Menesch, who sells weapons and ships to the Retros and pirates, was probably behind the theft of Burrows’ weapon.

A Retro defector tells Burrows the location of the Retros’ headquarters and warns they have made copies of the Steltek gun. Burrows realizes he must defeat the Retro leader Jones and destroy all copies of the powerful weapon.

Burrows' name was unknown to the general public for many years. During that period he was known as "Brownhair", by reference to "Bluehair", the ''Wing Commander I'' and ''II'' protagonist later known as Christopher Blair. In the CD-ROM edition which uses full speech, the characters always refer to him as "Captain" or "Privateer"; many people assume "Privateer" is his callsign.

The novel begins with 16-year-old Steve Harmon writing in his book awaiting for his trial for murder. Musing on his short time in prison so far, he decides to record this upcoming experience in the form of a movie screenplay. Kathy O'Brien, Steve's lawyer, informs him on what will happen during the trial. At this stage, only two of the four accused – James King and Steve – will be tried, since the other two accused – Richard "Bobo" Evans and Osvaldo Cruz – have entered into a plea bargain. When the trial first begins, Steve flashes back to a movie he saw in his school's film of predictability.

The trial begins with the opening statements of the prosecutor Sandra Petrocelli, Miss O'Brien, and King's lawyer, Asa Briggs. Petrocelli labels the four accused men, including Steve, as "monsters." The lawyers call on several witnesses, including Salvatore Zinzi and Wendell Bolden, illicit cigarette traders, who admit to buying cigarettes that came from a drugstore robbery that led to the murder. The story of the trial is often broken up by a variety of flashbacks, including ones showing that King is only acquainted with Steve, that King had accused Steve of pulling the trigger during the robbery. Petrocelli calls as a witness Osvaldo Cruz, who is affiliated with the Diablos, a violent street gang. Cruz admits to participating in the crime only due to coercion by Bobo.

Steve recounts a visit from his father, who wishes Steve would have gone on to attend his alma mater, Morehouse College. After recounting various news reports covering the robbery and murder, Steve documents his arrest and his mother's panicked reaction. Before returning to the trial, Steve writes in his notes that he cannot psychologically handle writing down the tragic details of the robbery itself. The coroner, the city clerk, and a detective are questioned in a four-way split screen montage. Miss O'Brien warns Steve not to write down in his notebook anything that he does not want the prosecutor to see.

According to Cruz, the original plan was that Steve would go into the drugstore and signal if the coast was clear. After King and Bobo robbed the store owner, Mr. Nesbitt, Cruz would slow down any potential pursuers. Bobo takes the witness stand to say that James King pulled the trigger and vaguely recalls that Steve, whom he hardly knows, was meant to give an all-clear signal.

Briggs argues that neither King nor Steve was ever involved in the crime since the only eyewitness to the robbery saw only two men involved, which can be accounted for by Bobo and Cruz alone. Though Miss O'Brien seems doubtful of Steve's innocence, she wisely has him distance himself from King. Steve appears to know King and Cruz only as remote acquaintances, and Bobo hardly at all. Steve testifies that he does not particularly remember where he was on the day of the robbery, but that he certainly was not a participant. The defense systematically casts the honesty of Petrocelli's witnesses in doubt. Although many of the testimonies contradict, even the most incriminating toward Steve claims only that he acted as a lookout in the first stage of the robbery.

George Sawicki, Steve's film club mentor, serves as a character witness, proudly defending Steve's moral character. Briggs, Miss O'Brien, and Petrocelli finally make their closing statements, before the jury decides on a verdict. James King is found guilty, while Steve is found not guilty. As Steve moves to hug O'Brien, she turns away, leaving Steve to question why. The end of the novel takes place five months after Steve has been cleared of all charges and released from prison. Steve has continued his film-making, but his father has moved away, creating a noticeable distance between the two. He is still confused as to Miss O'Brien's demeanor at the end of the trial, wondering whether she saw some real Steve or a "monster."

Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang have arrived in Australia for a vacation. After seeing various sights throughout Sydney, the gang decides to go to the outback and see the music festival at Vampire Rock. When they arrive, they meet the Hex Girls (the band the gang had met before in ''Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost'' and have since become close friends with). They also meet the managers of the show, Daniel and Russell, and Daniel's eccentric father, Malcolm, who is against the festival and warns Daniel about what has happened and drives off. Daniel tells them that most of the performers have left because Matt Marvelous was kidnapped by vampires. Daniel and Russell tell them about Wildwind, a musical group who performed last year. It is believed that the members of Wildwind - Dark Skull, Stormy Weather, and Lightning Strikes - have been turned into vampires by the Yowie Yahoo, a vampire who lives in Vampire Rock.

Fred decides the best way to solve the mystery is to enter the contest as a band to drive the Yowie Yahoo to capture them. While they are practicing (not very well), a golf cart approaches them driven by Jasper Ridgeway, and his band, the Bad Omens, King, Queen and Jack. The gang learns that Jasper was once the manager of Wildwind and grows suspicious of him, thinking he might have put his band up to masquerading as vampires and getting rid of the other performers to win. They split up, with Fred, Velma and Daphne going to Jasper's trailer and Shaggy and Scooby staying at the food stands.

At the trailer, Fred, Velma and Daphne find that Jasper has mementos of Wildwind, including the old stage costumes. They also wonder why Jasper did not come to his trailer (revealed he was trying to get the Hex Girls sign him as their manager after Wildwind) when he said he was going to. Meanwhile, Scooby and Shaggy get chased by the Wildwind Vampires and eventually lose them. They end up back at the stage, where the Bad Omens are rehearsing, witnessing the vampires capture them the same way they captured Matt Marvelous. Fred decides that everyone should sleep at the same place, so no one gets taken. During the festival, the Yowie Yahoo and Wildwind appear and capture the Hex Girls, leading the gang to chase them into the caves.

Inside, Fred, Velma and Daphne find the Wildwind vampires and get chased. Scooby and Shaggy get trapped by a group of dingoes. The sound of Fred, Velma and Daphne running scares off the Dingoes, but then the gang gets trapped by the vampires. The avoids them until the sun comes up, which destroys Yowie Yahoo but Wildwind are not affected by the sun or water, and chase the gang until they and Daniel trap them. The gang reveals the Two Skinny Dudes, a band they met prior, and Russell. Daniel and Jasper are surprised, and get even more so when it is shown that the Skinny Dudes and Russell are really the members of Wildwind in masks. They explain how they wanted to start up their career and were planning to perform again. However, when they realized that they were not allowed to, they disguised themselves as vampires, and sabotaged the other performers so they may make a 'miraculous comeback'. The Yowie Yahoo was just a hologram. When asked about the missing performers, they said they sent them away on free Great Barrier Reef Scuba diving tours except for the Hex Girls, who were dumped in the Outback when they refused to play along.

The members of Wildwind are arrested and. Daniel realizes that since all the other bands are out of the competition, that makes Scooby and the gang the winners by default. The film ends with the gang performing to the cheering crowd and getting their band name, the Meddling Kids, joined by the Hex Girls.

According to the official web site, "Trooper Clerks is a parody mixing the characters from Kevin Smith's ''Clerks'' universe with the settings and characters in George Lucas's ''Star Wars'' universe."

After her parents are killed in a car crash, teenage Sarah Velvet Brown is forced to leave her home in Cave Creek, Arizona, to go to England to live with her aunt Velvet Brown and Velvet's boyfriend John. After the events of ''National Velvet'' Donald got married, had Sarah, and moved from England to Arizona.

When Velvet was a similar age to Sarah, she and her horse, The Pie, entered the legendary Grand National horse race and crossed the finish line first; however, Velvet and The Pie were instantly disqualified because Velvet was a 14 year old girl. The Pie is ultimately put out to stud upon his retirement. He sires his last foal after Sarah's arrival in England. Sarah and Velvet are present for the birth of this foal and Sarah eventually decides that she'd like to purchase him. She later finds out that Velvet has bought him for her. Sarah aptly names him Arizona Pie.

She shows enough talent to be selected for the British Olympic team, where she is the junior, but she does well under the stern guidance of Captain Johnson. Sarah lives up to her dream and enters the Olympic Three Day Event helping Great Britain win the team competition. She falls in love with an American competitor named Scott Saunders and moves back to America with him. At the conclusion of the film Sarah is engaged to Scott and she gives her Olympic gold medal to Velvet. Sarah eventually returns to England and introduces Scott to Velvet and John.

It describes an attempt of robbery in an isolated hotel on Costa Brava. The robbery is planned with the help of a Critical Path Analysis computer program, but unforeseen events get in the way.

The three Americans needed cover, as lone men stood out. So each decided he would pick up a girl, and mingle with the crowd.

The women

• Annette was a working girl who did her best work after hours.
• Cynthia was nymphomaniac who liked marijuana and men—often together.
• Jenny was rich girl who wanted to be loved for her body.

The women were irrelevant, as the men's real interest was the hotel's safe, which would net them a million dollars in jewels, cash, and traveler's checks. The crime was brilliantly conceived. It was masterminded by a modern computer. But when they forgot the biggest risk of all—the women, and sex.

Murali (Balakrishna) is pursued by Peddiraju's (Sayaji Shinde) brothers, who are cooling his heels in jail. We are not told why they are looking after him. Murali is the loving brother of a handicapped woman, whom he carries to the college every day. Of course, he has fun escapades with Ashta Lakshmi (Sadha). And slowly but surely, we are led into Murali's past and to what happened between him and the arch-villain. It had something to do with Peddaraju's sister Malathi (Tanushree Dutta).

When Rachel is complaining about her eyes, Monica tells her to see her eye doctor, but Rachel refuses due to an unnatural fear of having anything near her or anyone else's eyes. Rachel eventually visits the eye doctor after much persuasion by Monica. The doctor tells her that she has a minor infection in her left eye and gives her eye drops for it. Monica takes extreme measures to give Rachel her eyedrops, to no avail. Eventually, Monica and the others manage to hold her down and give her the eyedrops.

Joey is told by his agent that he is to play the lead role in an upcoming movie called ''Shutter Speed'', which is being filmed in Las Vegas. After hearing the news, Chandler decides to go with Joey. While the two are on the George Washington Bridge on their way to Vegas, Joey reveals to Chandler that rather than getting a fixed salary, he would instead be getting a part of the movie's profit. This causes Chandler to inadvertently reveal that he does not think that this movie would be Joey's big break, causing Joey to kick Chandler out of the car.

In Vegas, Joey arrives at the film site where the director reveals that production is being postponed due to a lack of funds and tells Joey to stand by until filming can resume. Joey gets a job at Caesars Palace and hides it from his friends.

Meanwhile, Phoebe finds herself upset with Ross, but cannot remember why. Ross posits several reasons why Phoebe might be unhappy with him, but is unable find the right reason. He soon plays Phoebe's game with her in an effort to find out, and discovers that Phoebe believes that he called her boring. Ross cannot remember ever saying that she was boring, and Phoebe then realizes that it was a dream.

A psychopath goes into a house, killing a mother Linda Hewitt and her two children, Ryan and Holly. In the process, he takes pictures on his cell phone of his crimes. Elsewhere, Trisha Glass (Rebekah Kochan) is babysitting a girl, Molly Walker, while her parents are out at a dinner party where her father is also meant to give a speech. She needs this to go well because her last babysitting job with the Hewitts did not end on a positive note. On their way to the dinner party, Molly's parents are killed by an off-screen assailant that they obviously knew. Meanwhile, Trisha begins getting increasingly threatening phone calls and texts. Trisha looks for Molly and find her hiding outside behind garbage cans and just played a successful scaring prank on Trisha. They are greeted by Molly's next-door neighbor Charlie who also tells about Molly's ex-babysitter Mrs. Kochs, who, according to Molly, stunk.

In the house, Molly is in her bathroom brushing her teeth and Trisha drying Molly's hair. After Trisha puts Molly to bed, the caller escalates his threats towards her. He sends her pictures of the previous murders claiming he did it for her. Although she believes it is her boyfriend Matt calling her, she calls the police about the harassment and threats phone calls who inform her that they will trace the call.

Matt (Robert Buckley), along with his best friend Frank and the latter's girlfriend Chrissy, who are both rather reckless, obnoxious and irresponsible, arrive saying they have been chased by cops after Frank brandished a firearm at the bowling alley’s parking lot during an altercation. They ask to stay until it is safe to leave. Charlie sees them going in, but is then killed by the assailant as well. Matt assures Trisha that he had not been making those calls. Going into the basement to make out, Chrissy hears a strange noise. Frank is ambushed when he investigates and Chrissy is also ambushed when she goes to find him. Worried that Frank is causing trouble again, Trisha has Matt find out what he is doing. When he goes to the basement, he is ambushed and tied up by the intruder.

Watching the news of a triple murder earlier that night, Trisha realizes the pictures sent to her are real and that they are also of Linda, Ryan and Holly. The intruder calls Trisha and informs her that she needs to check on Molly. After the police call to inform her that the calls from both her cell and house phone came from inside the house, she discovers a camera in the living room and she hollers for Matt and Frank and gets more and more frightened when neither respond. She checks on Molly and finds her dead with Richard Hewitt (the murdered family's husband and father and also the killer himself, as well as the killer of Molly's parents, Charlie, Frank and Molly) in the bedroom. She tries to run from him but quickly trips and gets overpowered.

Awakening in the basement, Trisha discovers she is gagged and bound to a rafter, Matt tied up on the floor, Chrissy tied up and gagged on the couch, and Frank dead on the floor. Richard tortures the group first by slashing Chrissy's breasts, throwing liquor on the wounds then he kills her by slitting her throat. Hearing a noise upstairs, Richard goes and checks and discovers two state troopers and kills them. Richard also explains the reason for the murders, revealing he had become obsessed with Trisha after raping her one night. Using this time to free himself, Matt throws the liquor into Richard's face and tries to free Trisha. However, Matt is killed in the process. Trisha manages to run out of the house and retrieves Frank's gun which he stashed in Matt's car. She shoots Richard several times, ensuring he is dead, thus avenging everyone he killed (All the characters in the film killed by the knife). Trisha then walks away from the house into the streets, and obviously, going home.

Randy and Barbara, adult children of an affluent New England family, spend Fourth of July weekend at their family's beach house on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. Both are shocked when their widowed mother informs them that they're soon to be joined by their youngest brother, Pokey, long estranged from the family. When questioned as to the reasons for the reunion, their mother reveals that she plans to remarry—to their late father's best friend—and that, due to the conditions of their father's will, the house will pass to the three children. Pokey's arrival threatens the stability of this solid WASPish clan. Randy's childish competitiveness with his brother is reawakened. Pokey's liberated wife, Miriam, causes Randy's wife, Jane, to confront her true feelings about her life as a suburban wife and mother. Meanwhile, Barbara is having an affair with the family's former gardener, now married. Pokey announces his intentions to sell the house once it passes to the children, thus upsetting Barbara's plans for a quiet domestic life with her lover on the island. The children's upset forces their mother to confront where her life with her husband has brought her, and whether the true happiness really waits in her future.

During a usual trading flight Pyotr found a Counter on his craft who called himself Karel and, most importantly, made it through the ''jump'' unhurt (ironically, the alien accomplished this by going into a self-induced coma caused by division by zero). Standing orders require Pyotr to destroy the ship and all evidence of the alien's survival, as this would eliminate the Conclave's need in Humanity. The alien requested an informal meeting with Andrey Khrumov — Pyotr's grandfather and a known political scientist, also a great patriot of Humanity, biased against the Strong races.

A fleet of Alary has captured a small but deadly scout of an unknown civilization. Its pilot was killed, but without a doubt it was a human being. Studying the memory of the scout showed that another civilization had transferred its planetary system to a region of space close by, perhaps escaping a cataclysm. Strangely enough, they shaped their continents to resemble a perfect circle and square — so Andrey Khrumov called them Geometers.

The new civilization seems to be strong enough to take on the entire Conclave, as the single scout ship managed to wipe out two-thirds of one of the strongest Alary fleets before being tractored into the Alary flagship. This is a chance for Weak races to improve their positions... but also a threat for Earth, since on receiving the information the Strong races would destroy it to prevent its possible alliance with a biologically-identical race.

A conspiracy of four races decide to carry out a reconnaissance mission. Pyotr Khrumov agrees to enter a symbiosis with a Kualkua, who morphs him to appear as the dead pilot, gives him the language of Geometers, and temporarily erases his memory...

An audience shouts "Dusty!", a band begins to play amid smoke and lights, and Wyatt "Dusty" Chandler enters the stage to play his hits. Dusty feels that his elaborate stage show is overwhelming his music, a suspicion confirmed one night when he purposely omits several bars of a chart-topping hit, "Where the Sidewalk Ends". When his fans don't even notice, Dusty cuts the performance short. Dusty reminisces about simpler times with his drummer and best friend, Earl. Without telling his manager, Lula, he decides to "take a walk", but does not say exactly where he is going or for how long. Dusty was waiting for his truck, and he hitches a ride. After shaving his beard and cutting off his ponytail, Dusty heads for the small farm town where he grew up, visiting his wise old grandmother. Later that day, he visits a bar where he and Earl played prior to making it big. That evening, Dusty hangs around for some relaxation and discovers Harley Tucker dancing and smiling at Dusty. Al, Harley's drunk and rugged friend, get into an argument in the parking lot over Dusty, who neither have ever seen or met. Dusty, while drunk, comes to assist Harley with Al, who won't stop bothering her. Al punches Dusty and he falls to the ground. Harley brings him home, a reward for defending her honor. While Dusty is enjoying his new freedom, his concert in Shreveport was cancelled. Meanwhile, Buddy Jackson comes on stage, disguised as Dusty himself, and lip-syncing to a recording of Dusty. Covered by lights and smoke, the gimmick works. Meanwhile, Dusty stays on at the ranch, paying room and board and taking roping lessons, all the while earning the respect of Harley's father, Ernest. Ernest confides in Dusty that he is forced to slowly sell pieces of the ranch. Harley is determined to save the struggling spread with victory in a Las Vegas rodeo.

Buddy confronts Lula after his "performance" and demands $100,000 and a recording contract. He lies to the media that Lula paid him to keep imitating Dusty. Lula, realizing she's in trouble, reaches out to Earl to find Dusty. She then follows him to Dusty's location. Realizing he has feelings for Harley and will not leave, Lula tells Harley that Dusty is married to her. Harley dumps Dusty and Lula is waiting to scoop him up to return to his band and career. Now back with his band, he demands that his stage shows be toned down.

Dusty confronts Buddy about the lie he told the press. Dusty threatens to sue Buddy if he ever shows his face in country music again and Buddy leaves. Lula is grateful for his intervention to which Dusty brings up Harley's name. His first appearance after his "vacation" is in Las Vegas at the same time as the rodeo Harley Tucker is competing in. Lula secretly arranges for Harley and her family to get tickets to Dusty's Show. Once seated she sends an attendant to get Harley where she admits the truth to her. True to his wishes, he does the show without all the smoke and the lights, and sits on the edge of the stage, playing guitar and singing "I Cross My Heart," a special love song he has composed for her, which wins him Harley's forgiveness. The two hug at the edge of the stage.

The film's lead character George Weygate (Richard Roxburgh), a kind family man, meets a young woman while driving home from work, the girl (Kylie Minogue) suggests she is suffering from a diabetic seizure and demands him to take her to a block of flats as soon as possible to fictional Walker Street, in Sydney's Darlinghurst. He complies, but is left wondering what is going on. When they reach their destination, the girl departs from the car without saying a word, heading towards the block of flats. Weygate, realizing that she left her belongings in the back of his car, goes after her to return them to her. After finding her apartment, he realizes that he has been mysteriously locked in. In an effort to escape he begins to scale the building. A neighbour tries to stop his escape, but is unsuccessful. He later discovers the girl slumped on the floor in the building's elevator. He goes to help her, but she screams at him for stealing her bag. Eventually he manages to escape the building and returns home.

Just before the French Revolution, Henriette takes her close adopted sister Louise to Paris in the hope of finding a cure for her blindness. She promises Louise that she will not marry until Louise can look upon her husband to approve him. Lustful aristocrat de Praille (whose carriage kills a child, enraging peasant father, Forget-not) meets the two outside Paris. Taken by the virginal Henriette's beauty, he has her abducted and brought to his estate where a lavish party is being held, leaving Louise helpless in the big city. An honorable aristocrat, the Chevalier de Vaudrey helps Henriette to escape de Praille and his guests by successfully fighting a duel with him. The scoundrel Mother Frochard, seeing an opportunity to make money, tricks Louise into her underground house to be kept prisoner. Unable to find Louise with the help of the Chevalier, Henriette rents a room, but before leaving her de Vaudrey comforts and kisses the distressed woman. Later, Henriette gives shelter to admirable politician Danton, who after an attack by Royalist spies following a public speech falls for her. As a result, she runs foul of the radical revolutionary Robespierre, a friend of Danton.

Mother Frochard forces Louise into begging. Meanwhile, de Vaudrey proposes to Henriette and she refuses. After expressing love for each other, he promises Henriette that Louise will be found. King Louis XVI orders Henriette to be arrested, due to his disapproval of de Vaudrey's choice of wife, and the Chevalier is also sent away while his aunt visits Henriette. During the meeting, Louise is heard singing outside, where Frochard has told her to walk blindly and sing. Henriette calls out from her upstairs balcony, but the panicked Louise is dragged off by Frochard and Henriette is arrested and sent to a women's prison.

Louise and Frochard's begging continues with the other two Frochards, and before long the Revolution begins. A battle between the Royalist soldiers and the people allied with the police, who are successful, results in aristocrats being killed and the prisoners of the "Tyrants" (including Henriette) being freed. A people's 'rag-tag' government is formed, and Forget-not takes his revenge against de Praille.

Robespierre and Forget-not send Henriette and her lover, the Chevalier de Vaudrey, to the guillotine, for hiding de Vaudrey, an aristocrat, who returned to Paris to find her. However, Danton manages to obtain a pardon for them. After a race through the streets of Paris he just manages to save Henriette and offers her to the Chevalier, when the two orphans unite. A doctor restores Louise's sight, she approves marriage between Henriette and the Chevalier, and a better-organized Republic forms in France.

In 1985, Young Shawn Spencer (Liam James) is looking for Young Gus. Henry Spencer (Corbin Bernsen) shows Shawn how to sneak around, hiding within his lesson the message to "do the little things right". In present day, Shawn (James Roday) sneaks into the police briefing room, where he discovers that a five-million dollar engagement ring has been stolen from a hotel vault. Without permission, Shawn and Gus (Dulé Hill) take the case. Shawn is given an invitation to the wedding. While at the hotel, Shawn listens into Detective Lassiter's (Timothy Omundson) brief about the investigation, and gains valuable information. Dietrich Manheim (Guy Fauchon), a hotel staff member becomes the police's main suspect. After tricking the hotel receptionist, Shawn gains access to the rooms of all police officers and wedding attendees. Shawn walks in on a pre-wedding party, and discovers that the florist quit, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen had to make their own wedding bouquets. Shawn and Gus break into Lassiter's room, and discover an insurance policy on the ring, with a major value.

Gus decides they need to see the safe; however, the only way they can access it is through the ventilation shafts. When opening a panel to access the shaft system, they discover Manheim's dead body. Shawn "psychically" reveals this to the police, using it as a way to distract them while he watches the security footage for the vault. After viewing the footage, they hold a bachelor party where Shawn questions all of the attendees. Shawn talks with Lacey Maxwell (Christine Chatelain), the sister of the groom, who asks him to get her bouquet from a locked cooler, but he can't. Before the wedding, the bouquets are passed out, and Lacey panics when hers isn't there. Lacey reveals she is a magician when she helps to calm down the flower girl. Shawn realizes who stole the ring and killed Manheim, but his realization occurs in the middle of the ceremony. Shawn interrupts the wedding with a "psychic episode", and exposes Lacey to everyone.Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece (#1_1003) p. 2

Eun-Jae (Choi Ji-woo) and Hyung-Woo (Yoon Sang-hyun) have been married for one year. They are both lawyers.

They first met at a baseball game when they happened to have seats next to each other. During the baseball game they kissed and fell in love. Hyung-Woo told Eun-Jae that he wants to become a human rights lawyer. Eun-Jae supports his dream and they opened their own law firm together.

One year later, the thrill is gone in their relationship. Eun-Jae struggles to maintain the law firm alone, while Hyung-Woo helps clients who are not able to pay much for his services. Their interests have also diverged. One day, the couple learns that Eun-Jae did not register their marriage. The next day, Eun-Jae goes to file the proper papers. Eun-Jae is unhappy that Hyung-Woo is so generous to others and wants him to think about her more. Later on, Hyung-Woo's friends, who are a couple, stops by the law firm and the wife, Young-Joo (Jo Mi-ryung) insists that she wants a divorce. Young-Joo states that her husband Ki-Chan (Kim Jung-tae) hasn't worked in years and, yet, still gave his family a large sum of money. The married couple start yelling at each other. Ki-Chan states that he borrowed the money from Hyung-Woo.

Meanwhile, Eun-Jae hears of the loan and has had enough. Eun-Jae decides that they need a serious talk. Eun-Jae and Hyung-Woo then book a trip to Japan where they had their honeymoon. Hyung-Woo then mistakenly text messages his itinerary to his mother instead of Eun-Jae. When Hyung-Woo and Eun-Jae arrive at the airport they find Hyung-Woo's mother there as well, believing she was invited to their trip to Japan. Making matters worse Hyung-Woo receives a phone call from his mother-in-law asking to see him immediately and to keep it a secret. Hyung-Woo doesn't know why his wife and his mother-in-law doesn't get along or why he was never formally introduced to his mother-in-law, but he feels obligated to meet her and leaves ...

The story's narrator is a 24-year-old writer who works as a fact checker for a highbrow magazine for which he had once hoped to write. By night, he is a cocaine-using party-goer seeking to lose himself in the hedonism of the 1980s yuppie party scene, often going to a nightclub called ''Heartbreak''.

His wife, Amanda, recently left him, and he copes with this by pretending nothing happened and telling no one that she is gone. The two had met in Kansas City; the narrator moves with her to New York City, where she begins a modeling career that quickly takes off. After flying out to Paris for Fashion Week, she calls the narrator to inform him that she is leaving him for another man and to pursue her career. Initially hopeful that she will return someday, the narrator eventually resorts to searching for her at a fashion event, publicly humiliating himself while failing to garner more attention from her than a brief look. He obsesses over every item she owned in his apartment, every modeling photo and every club she visited, even repeatedly visiting a mannequin based on her. His partying and his personal troubles begin to affect his work. He eventually comes to realize Amanda's superficiality, becoming both disillusioned with her and the materialistic culture of New York in general. He reveals that the true reason for his spiral downwards was his mother's death, which actually took place a year ago. He realizes that he had married Amanda because he thought it would make his mother happy. After his mother's death, he was in shock and it wasn't until Amanda left him that he began really grieving over his mother, causing his cocaine addiction and reckless abandon.

''The Sinner'' involves Detective Jane Rizzoli and a main character new to the series, first seen in "The Apprentice" as a minor figure, medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles. When a young novice nun about to take vows is found murdered in the abbey's summer chapel, Isles and Rizzoli are immediately called to the scene. The elderly nuns are of little help to Isles and Rizzoli but when another body is found, mutilated beyond recognition (and testing reveals the body to be that of a fortyish Indian Hansen's Disease victim), it is soon discovered that there is more to these killings than meets the eye. Dr. Victor Banks hooks up with Maura Isles.

The novel follows the journeys of three young European boys represented in a circa 1913 or 1914 photograph by August Sander. Two parallel narratives – one in the voice suspected to be the author, whose surname, we learn, starts with P – offer contemporary perspectives and illustrate the interconnectedness of events. These voices provide contemporary perspectives on technology, the major theme of the novel. A series of rather academic essays on the nature of photography, including quotes from Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt – in the authorial narrative voice of Mr P – are interspersed with the story.

The story begins with the authorial narrative voice of Mr P. first sighting the photograph taken in the months before the outbreak of World War I of three young boys in Germany, a photograph which is titled ''Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance'' and is being exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The novel follows the fictional fates of these three young men in war time, as well as the stories of Peter Mays, a technical editor for a 1980s electronics magazine, and Mr P. – the first-person narrator of sections of the novel – who is obsessed with the photograph and with concepts of photography and technology.

Powers's later novel ''Galatea 2.2'', published in 1995, uses the first person perspective of semifictional narrator Richard Powers to describe to a large extent the conditions under which Powers wrote ''Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance''.

''Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance'' attempts to balance the technological advancements that caused the large scale deaths in World War I with those that created art for the masses in the form of photography.

At the beginning of the book, Bourne is in Doctor Sunderland's office. Sunderland, recommended by Lindros, is a specialist in memory restoration and miniaturization. Unfortunately for Bourne, he doesn't know that this man posing as Sunderland is actually Costin Veintrop, hired by Fadi to mess with Bourne's brain by creating new memories. These new memories can be evoked by new smells or even hearing things. As Bourne exits the office two things happen: Veintrop calls Fadi and tells him the work is done, and Bourne receives a call that Martin is missing. He then catches a cab and heads back to the CIA headquarters to talk to the Old Man.

Back at the CIA, Bourne is introduced to a number of new people: Matthew Lerner (the Deputy Director until Lindros gets back), Soraya Moore (a senior case officer), Hiram Cevik (a prisoner, actually Fadi in disguise), and Tim Hytner (who is framed as a traitor to the CIA organization). Tim is working on cracking a cipher created by Fadi. Unwittingly Bourne brings Cevik out of his prison cage to take a walk with him in an attempt to extract more information about Fadi. Then Cevik escapes under the cover of a gun battle in which Hytner is killed. Bourne then steals a motorcycle from the back of a truck to follow the Hummer, which he thinks Cevik is still trying to escape in. Once the Hummer is stopped up the street, CIA officers surround the car, waiting for the prisoners to step out. Bourne then realizes the car is rigged to explode. He grabs Soraya and they make their way to safety just before detonation.

Later, Jakob and Lev Silver (Fadi and Muta ibn Aziz in disguise) arrive at the Hotel Constitution, located on the northeast corner of 20th and F Streets. They have a hotel worker named Omar bring them some champagne; the room service was merely a ruse to kill the innocent man and use his likeness to disguise Fadi in an elaborate diversion to easily get Fadi out of the country. Fadi kills Omar, uses makeup and props to disguise his own face with Omar's features, sprays the room with Carbon Disulfide and sets fire to the suite. The room burns, and turns Omar's body into unrecognizable ash as Fadi slips away.

Bourne boards a plane intent on finding Fadi. While on board he looks at some of the pictures that Deron has given him on Fadi. Bourne ends up going from London to Addis Ababa; Ababa to Djibouti. In Djibouti, he takes a CIA helicopter to Ras Dejen to look for Fadi and check the area. He finds a body suspiciously drained of all its natural fluids; he suspects radiation is the key. While there, in the wreck of Skorpion One, Bourne sees a boy, Alem. Alem leads him into town and to his father. After being chased by terrorists, he goes and sees the victims of Skorpion One inside a church. There the pilot, Jaime Cowell, tells him that Fadi was torturing Lindros.

Meanwhile, Martin Lindros is being tortured by Fadi and his men, and they are all on the move. They relocate Martin to places that are safe for Fadi and his people; and sufficiently away from Bourne. In this case they move him to a Dujja hiding place in a cave. When Bourne arrives in Ras Dejen, he is able to rescue Lindros (actually Karim al-Jamil) and brings him back to the CIA, where Karim sends him to Munich to meet with Yevgeny Feyodovich, a man that does business with Dujja. Karim gets word from his source that Bourne will be landing tomorrow, and gives orders for him to be executed.

Upon arriving and starting what he believes to be his mission, Bourne discovers Edor Vladovich Lemontov (a fictitious drug lord that Bourne was to meet with) is not a real person, and ends up in a chase with the terrorists. The chase culminates with Bourne ending up on a beach face to face with Fadi. Fadi says "I've waited a long time for this moment," referring to the time that Bourne killed his sister (which we later learn is untrue). Fadi and Bourne fight, with Fadi stabbing Bourne with a knife. During the struggle, a dog attacks Fadi and bites him in the face, knocking him off his guard. The dog (a boxer named Oleksandr) is with Soraya and she is there in Odessa to help Bourne, unaware that she was sent by the impostor Lindros to be killed as well.

Bourne and Soraya escape and end up in Istanbul, Turkey, where they find a tracking device planted on him. This happened the day that they took Hiram Cevik out of his prison cage. Bourne figures out that the prisoner was actually Fadi in disguise. They also discover the truth behind a lot of the other deceptions being played out, including the fact that Soraya's friend, Anne Held was Karim (The Fake Lindros)'s Mistress, and the true mole in the CIA. They find out that Veintrop was hired by Fadi to do the surgery. They find out that Sunderland's office wasn't even open on Tuesday. Bourne sends Soraya back to the CIA to find the mole inside. Bourne goes to Nesim Hatun's house to ask him about some things. There he starts following Fadi's messenger back to Buyukada, where he poses as the pilot of Muta's airplane. They end up crashing, and Bourne finds out that he didn't actually kill Fadi's sister Sarah; Muta and his brother Abbud did because she was having a secret love affair, a mortal sin in Muslim tradition.

Bourne and his friend Feyd al-Sould, whose men kill Muta, find the underground opening to the Dujja facility in Miran Shah. Feyd al-Sould and his cadre go and blow up the water pipes, flooding the underground facility. Bourne then finds Lindros, being held hostage by Fadi, and kills both Abbud and Fadi. Fadi however, had managed to shoot a bullet through Lindros' jaw and eye socket, giving the injured CIA deputy director very little time to live. Katya Veintrop, Costin's wife, is also killed. Costin then deactivates the detonator bomb. Jason makes his way back to the CIA to kill Karim al-Jamil.

Meanwhile, Soraya and Tyrone, a friend of Bourne, are on the run from supremacists and terrorists. They end up finding the Old Man being embalmed in a mortuary, as they set out for the CIA headquarters. They get shot at by terrorists in the Old Man's limousine, thinking that they can get into the headquarters by showing them the DCI's face, redone by another one of Fadi's men, which they'll blow up with C-4. Soraya manages to cause the limo to crash and explode within feet of headquarters.

Bourne kills Karim al-Jamil at the IVT facility by using the same trademark as his nemesis Carlos the Jackal, a bullet to the throat. He then realizes that there is a second timer on the bomb. However, after thinking about it he realizes that the second timer was put in there by Veintrop, who, to get back at Fadi and Karim's men for hurting and torturing his wife, didn't connect it to the bomb. He then joins Martin's widow, Moira, in spreading his ashes.

Category:2007 American novels Category:American thriller novels Category:Novels by Eric Van Lustbader Category:Bourne (novel series) Category:American spy novels Category:Cultural depictions of Carlos the Jackal

When police officer Moe Finkelstein (Milton Berle) and his colleague Officer Salomon are ordered to serve as bodyguards to German consul Karl Baumer (Otto Preminger) by the mayor of New York City, Finkelstein turns in his badge, convinced he has to quit the service because the man is a Nazi. Capt. Mulrooney, who appointed them to this job, tells Moe that although the mayor personally is opposed to Adolf Hitler and his regime, the mayor is responsible for the safety of everybody, and he believes that through this assignment Finkelstein can show them the difference between their system and the Nazi one.

Moe quickly discovers Baumer is in trouble with Berlin for having squandered money intended to finance sabotage. His secretary, Baron Max von Alvenstor (Carl Esmond), has become disenchanted with his boss and refuses to delay the delivery of a damaging financial report to Berlin. Baumer's Czechoslovak wife, Sophia, confesses to Moe that she loathes her husband and married him only to secure her father's release from prison. Also at odds with Baumer is Otto Horst, who has been ordered to procure false identification cards for German saboteurs assigned to blow up an American port at the end of a radio broadcast delivered by Hitler.

Under orders from Berlin to dispense with Horst, Baumer plots to frame Max for the man's murder and tries to enlist Sophia's help, but she warns Horst of the scheme, so he begins to carry a gun for protection. While the Baumers are listening to the radio speech with their guests (Horst, Max, and Dr. Jennings), Horst stabs the Consul with his new knife without the others' noticing it. Then Sophia grabs Horst's gun and kills Baumer. Max urges Sophia to escape before anyone sees her.

Moe discovers the body and begins to question suspects, including Sophia, who readily confesses to the crime, but Max insists it was he who killed Baumer. Moe reveals Baumer not only was shot but was stabbed and poisoned as well. Meanwhile, Max rushes to the port where the saboteurs are concealed and orders them to dismantle the bomb. With only minutes to spare, the bomb is dismantled and the saboteurs are captured. Returning to the consulate, Max identifies Horst as an accomplice to the saboteurs, and Horst is arrested.

A coroner's report determines Baumer died of poisoning. Reconstructing the event, they discover that he put the poison in the whisky glass for Max, but when something hit the window during the demonstration outside, the whisky glass intended for Max was confused with the consul's own brandy glass, so Baumer mistakenly drank from the glass he meant for Max.

Brenda Martin walks into the hospital emergency room in a state of shock. As doctors bandage her hands, they find out she is the victim of a carjacking near Armstrong. Detective Lorenzo Council meets with her, and through her tears gets the story that her four-year-old son Cody was in the backseat of the car. She then describes the assailant as being a young black man with a shaved head and scary eyes.

Local reporter Jesse Haus follows up on this relatively minor news story, and is one of the first to learn about the kidnapping. After promising to write a story on Bump Rosen's son, she gets an inside chance to be next to Brenda. As the Gannon and Dempsey police blockade the crime area, Lorenzo works to get more details from Brenda, and Jesse works on details for her story. Lorenzo has Jesse stay with Brenda so she is not alone, and Jesse discovers Brenda's love of classic R&B music.

Lorenzo, under a deadline to solve the case or lose it to the FBI, starts asking all of his contacts for any information. False or no information is the result, and the residents of Armstrong are beginning to express outrage at the blockade. George Howard is arrested in hopes of getting information from him, but his unfair arrest only pushes passions higher. In a last chance to elicit information from Brenda, Lorenzo takes her to the abandoned Freedomtown theme park and opens up to her, hoping that she will do the same in turn.

Ben Haus brings in Karen Collucci and the Friends of Kent (an organization that searches for missing children) to speak to Brenda and organize a search party for Cody. They figure the most likely place to search would be an abandoned, overgrown mental hospital not too far from where the carjacking occurred. Understanding that the Friends of Kent have a hidden agenda, Jesse sticks close to Brenda and Elaine during the search. Lorenzo has an asthma attack and ends up in the hospital. After he is gone, the group arrives at a building where a child's body had been found years earlier. There, Brenda hears a child crying, and confesses to knowing where Cody is.

Days before, when Brenda had gone downstairs to meet her boyfriend Billy, she came back up and found Cody dead of a Benadryl overdose. She panicked and ran away, until she finally called Billy and told him what happened. He went over and took Cody to Freedomtown and buried him in front of the Chicago Fire exhibit, as per a written request from Brenda. When Brenda returned, Cody was gone and the spot was cleaned up. Then, while sitting next to the railroad and only half thinking about it, she jams her hands into the ground (causing her injuries) and makes her way to the hospital on foot.

As the story comes out, Dempsey residents are outraged, and Lorenzo feels a protest riot is in the air. That night, the feeling subsides when a man dies in an elevator accident. The next day, local leaders plan a march to demonstrate against the unfair treatment they received during the carjacking-kidnapping story. They march into Gannon with a police escort, and then back into Dempsey. At the end of the march, a fight breaks out and another resident is killed.

The novel ends with a funeral for Cody, followed soon after by Brenda's suicide. This seems to end the saga, leaving the residents of both cities emotionally exhausted.

Set in the then-futuristic year 2005, the story line is that the player's shuttle commander has been trapped in a dimensional maze in outer space. Only he can rescue the commander by throwing energy balls at the walls. Four different types of energy balls can be used; effects range from slowing down the opponent to killing them outright.

James 'Jim' Hudson, an adventurer and accompanied by allies, goes after Nazi agents who have a new death ray called the ''Paratron''...

Karigan G'ladheon, a merchant's daughter, is cast out of her school in Selium by Dean Geyer following a duel in which she bested a wealthy aristocrat.

Running away from the shame of her expulsion, she travels into the forest called the Green Cloak. She meets a Green Rider (one of a group of legendary elite messengers in the king's service) who is dying with two black arrows protruding from his back. The Green Rider, F'ryan Coblebay, makes Karigan swear to carry a message to Sacor City for the 'love of her country', and there to deliver it into the hands of either Laren, the Captain of the Green Riders, or the king himself. He also orders Karigan not to read the letter for the sake of her life. Coblebay entrusts a second more private letter to her care also. As his life passes, he whispers with his last breath; "beware the shadow man...". She also takes the gold winged horse brooch that is the symbol of his office as a Green Rider.

Karigan, following her promise, rides the horse, which she calls "Horse" (whose real name is Condor), to Sacor City through perilous paths. Horse appears to have an uncanny ability to evade the various dangers Karigan encounters, always delivering Karigan to safety. During the journey, she meets many people, including the Berry sisters, members of the mystical, elf-like race of Eletians, and two traitorous Weapons (a special rank given only to the bodyguards of the king). Throughout her journey, the ghost of F'ryan Coblebay follows her, urging her on and providing help when desperately needed.

When she reaches Sacor City, she is hailed as a Green Rider, and she delivers both letters. The second seemingly less important letter, which Karigan felt justified in reading as it was not addressed to the king, was a love letter to the beautiful Lady Estora.

Karigan delivers the letter from F'ryan Coblebay but to everyone's dismay the letter appears to contain nothing of any importance. The Lady Estora, confused by inaccuracies in the letter delivered to her, approaches Karigan; who then takes the letter to Laren for closer inspection. The love letter is decoded to reveal a plot by his brother Amilton and one of the clan chiefs to kill King Zachary. Amilton, the elder brother of Zachary, was denied the throne due to his dishonorable character and eventually even lost the right to rule over the family province of Hillander due to his shameful behaviour.

There follows a desperate battle as Shawdell, an Eletian who has infiltrated the king's court and gained the trust of the crown, is revealed as the Shadowman F'ryan Coblebay warned Karigan of. During a dangerous battle Karigan, with the help of ghosts, wounds the rogue Eletian and he disappears. After the battle, it is discovered that Amilton, Zachary's disinherited older brother, has stolen into the castle and taken over. An elaborate and daring plan allows Karigan, along with the King and his retinue, to enter the castle through the underground tombs. Once inside, they make their way to the throne room and confront Prince Amilton. Shawdell (the rogue Eletian/Shadowman) has merged with Amilton and is taking him over. At this point, Karigan almost manages to sever the connection between Amilton and Shawdell and is transported to an in-between place where she manages to defeat Shawdell/Amilton and save the kingdom. After recovering from the ordeal, she goes home with her father, vowing to follow in his footsteps and become a merchant, leaving behind service as a Green Rider.

Four young misfits from four different classes are brought together at the Winding Circle Temple in Emelan. They find themselves housed together as they did not "fit in" when they slept in the dormitories with everyone. They are sent to Discipline Cottage to learn and use their new-found magical abilities. All four have ambient magic, as opposed to academic magic, and the power they use comes from ordinary things all around them. Sandry has magic with threads, Tris with weather, Daja with smithing, and Briar with plants.

Lady Sandrilene fa Toren is locked away in a dark room with a fading oil lamp. She was magically hidden in this storeroom days ago by her nurse, who was murdered moments later just outside the door by a mob bent on destroying everything infected by the fierce plague that killed Sandry's parents. Sandry is concerned about the flickering oil lamp, even though she knows there is no chance of anybody finding her as the room she is locked in is protected by magic so that it cannot be found either magically or non-magically, and the only person who knows her whereabouts is her nurse, who is dead. Sandry is afraid of going crazy in the darkness. Unknowingly doing her first piece of magic, Sandry traps the remaining light in a simple braid. A powerful seer, Niklaren Goldeye, finds her and takes her to Winding Circle in Emelan.

Trader Daja Kisubo is the lone survivor when her family's ship is destroyed in a storm. She floats on the water for days, surviving only because she finds a ''suraku''—a survival box full of food and water from the ship. When Niko finds her, they go to the Trader Council so they can decide Daja's fate. Because Daja is the only survivor of her family, they declare her ''trangshi,'' or outcast—the worst sort of bad luck. As ''trangshi,'' she is forbidden to speak, touch, or write to other Traders. Niko is outraged at the council's decision and conducts her to Winding Circle.

Roach (later named Briar Moss) is a "street rat" in Hajra, Sotat. His mother died when he was four; he was then taken in by the Thief Lord, the leader of the gang Lightning. Each time Roach is caught committing a crime, an "X" is tattooed onto the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. After his third capture, Roach is sentenced to the docks but is saved by Niko, who stopped the judge and convinced her to allow him to take Roach to Winding Circle. Roach also has the opportunity to choose a new name for himself; he chooses Briar Moss because of his curiosity and experience with plants.

Trisana Chandler is from a merchant's family. She has been passed from relative to relative because of the strange things that occur when she is around. Never staying long in one house, she never had a real family. Eventually, she is brought to Stone Circle Temple by her parents and left there, where she wreaks more havoc still. The temple's dedicate superior pleads with Niko to take her to Winding Circle, and he agrees after Tris starts a hail storm out of anger.

The four children are brought to Winding Circle Temple in Emelan, where they do not fit in. Daja is secluded and ignored because she is a Trader, Tris wreaks havoc through weather when girls upset her by making fun of her, Briar threatens other boys with knives, and Sandry is caught looking at the looms too much. They are all taken to Discipline Cottage, an isolated cottage for children who do not fit in, where they are overseen there by Dedicate Lark, a kind and gentle thread mage, and Dedicate Rosethorn, a sharp plant mage.

The four learn they have magic, which none of them knew about. While they all practice meditation, each of the four is matched with a main teacher to guide them through their magical learning. Sandry begins studying with Lark, learning to weave and spin; Tris studies with Niko about weather; Daja is taken under the wing of Dedicate Frostpine, the greatest smith mage; Briar works with Rosethorn in her garden and workshop. They each grow closer together and stronger in their magic.

During the course of the book, there have been tremors all summer. Near the end of the book, a big earthquake comes, having gained power by bouncing off the walls of a crystal used in an attempt to trap it. Just before, the four were out walking Little Bear, their dog, when he runs down a path and into the back of a large cave. The four and their dog are stuck underground when the earthquake begins. Daja holds the roof of their small space up by making a magical "suraku" around the space to help save them. Tris and Briar begin their own protections and Tris starts to open up air vents. However, the three of them cannot finish, because each person does not have the skill to finish. Sandry remembers her time trapped in the storage room and is paralyzed with fear when she remembers her weaving bag. She infuses it with the essences of the four and weaves their magic together, so each can complete his or her jobs.

The four and their dog are rescued by their teachers after the quake. It is discovered that they are under the kitchens of the temple.

At the very end of the book, Tris, Briar, and Daja present Sandry with a light-filled crystal to help her conquer her fear of the dark.

The novel revolves around the legend of Atlantis, mentioned as an ancient city or continent which was drowned by the sea due to divine intervention. The novel is narrated by Headley who first writes a letter to his friend Sir John Talbot. On his subsequent rescue, he completes his story giving details on his escape and how they fought off possibly the greatest danger to humanity, the Devil himself.

The novel begins with preparations for the dive, off the coast of Africa. Prof. Maracot claims to have located the deepest trench in the Atlantic and is vehement that he shall go down in the specially prepared submersible (actually a bathysphere) along with Headley and Scanlan. On reaching the edge of the trench, a description of the undersea world is presented. The team comes face to face with a giant crustacean who cuts off their line and hurls them down into the trench. Down in the trench, the team is rescued by the Atlanteans who are the last survivors of the land that was Atlantis.

At this point, one device in particular is often made use of: a thought projector, which visualizes the thoughts of a person for others to see. This helps the team and the Atlanteans to communicate.

Descriptions of work habits, culture and various sea creatures are provided. The Atlanteans forage for their food from the sea bed and their slaves, Greek descendants of Atlantis's original slaves, work in undersea mines. This is made possible thanks to an exceptionally strong and light transparent material Atlanteans fashion into helmets to enable people to work underwater.

The team eventually uses the levity of these spheres to escape to the surface. Headley elopes with the daughter of Manda, leader of the Atlanteans.

In the later part of the novel, Headley describes the encounter with the Lord of the Dark Face, a supernatural being who led the Atlanteans to their doom and was the cause of untold miseries to humanity ever since. This being is likened to the Phoenician god Baal who was demonized by later religions and cultures. The being is defeated by Prof. Maracot who becomes possessed by the spirit of Warda, the man who managed to convince a handful of Atlanteans to prepare for the worst and thus built an Ark which saved them from the cataclysm which destroyed their land.

The novella comprises four parts. Only the first three appeared in the original publication in the October 1, 1845, issue of the ''Revue des deux Mondes'' (Review of the Two Worlds); the fourth first appeared in the book publication in 1846. Mérimée tells the story as if it had really happened to him on his trip to Spain in 1830.

'''Part I.''' The work is prefaced by an untranslated quotation from the poet Palladas:

Πᾶσα γυνὴ χόλος ἐστίν· ἔχει δ᾽ δύω ὥρας, τὴν μίαν ἐν θαλάμῳ, τὴν μίαν ἐν θανάτῳ. (Every woman turns sour/Twice she has her hour/One is in bed/The other is dead).

For readers of Ancient Greek, this set the theme of the tale: a ferocious woman, sex, and death.

While searching for the site of the Battle of Munda in a lonely spot in Andalusia, the author meets a man who his guide hints is a dangerous robber. Instead of fleeing, the author befriends the man by sharing cigars and food. They stay in the same primitive inn that night. The guide tells the author that the man is the robber known as Don José Navarro and leaves to turn him in, but the author warns Don José, who escapes.

'''Part II.''' Later, in Córdoba, the author meets Carmen, a beautiful Gitano (Romani) woman who is fascinated by his repeating watch. He goes to her home so she can tell his fortune, and she impresses him with her occult knowledge. They are interrupted by Don José, and although Carmen makes throat-cutting gestures, José escorts the author out. The author finds his watch is missing.

Some months later, again in Córdoba, a friend of the author's tells him that Don José Navarro is to be garrotted the next day. The author visits the prisoner and hears the story of his life.

'''Part III.''' The robber's real name is José Lizarrabengoa, and he is a Basque ''hidalgo'' from Navarre. He killed a man in a fight resulting from a game of ''paume'' (presumably some form of Basque pelota) and had to flee. In Seville he joined a unit of dragoons, soldiers with police functions.

One day he met Carmen, then working in the cigar factory he was guarding. As he alone in his unit ignored her, she teased him. A few hours later, he arrested her for cutting "x"s in a co-worker's face in a quarrel. She convinced him by speaking Basque that she was half Basque, and he let her go, for which he was imprisoned for a month and demoted.

After his release, he encountered her again and she repaid him with a day of bliss, followed by another when he allowed her fellow smugglers to pass his post. He looked for her at the house of one of her Romani friends, but she entered with his lieutenant. In the ensuing fight, José killed the lieutenant. He fled to Carmen's outlaw band.

With the outlaws, he progressed from smuggling to robbery, and was sometimes with Carmen but suffered from jealousy as she used her attractions to further the band's enterprises; he also learned that she was married. After her husband joined the band, José provoked a knife fight with him and killed him. Carmen became José's wife.

However, she told him she loved him less than before, and she became attracted to a successful young picador named Lucas. José, mad with jealousy, begged her to forsake other men and live with him; they could start an honest life in America. She said that she knew from omens that he was fated to kill her, but "Carmen will always be free," and as she now hated herself for having loved him, she would never give in to him. He stabbed her to death and then turned himself in. Don José ends his tale by saying that the Romani are to blame for the way they raised Carmen.

'''Part IV.''' This part consists of scholarly remarks on the Romani: their appearance, their customs, their conjectured history, and their language. According to , editor of a collection of Mérimée's fiction, the etymologies at the end are "extremely suspect".

Lois Lane and Clark Kent's engagement in Metropolis is interrupted when Clark/Superman has to fly to the Caucasus in Eurasia to rescue people downstream from a burst dam. While Clark is away, a hotel in Metropolis collapses, and Lois becomes involved in rescuing some children. When Clark returns, he and Lois discover that their arch-rival Lex Luthor may be responsible for bringing down the hotel and other buildings the city using water to undermine their foundations.

Alex receives a call from the mother of an ex-patient, Lauren Teague. Considering it unresolved business, Alex contacts Milo and they ask around to see if they can find her. Her body turns up and the missing person case turns into a murder investigation.

Alex and Milo visit her parents, former co-workers, roommates, and employers. They follow connections back and find that Lauren had $350,000 saved up, probably earned from prostitution. She had recently started to attend college, and was part of an intimacy experiment. When a former co-worker ends up dead after speaking to them, they know the murder was no ordinary mugging. Then Lauren's mother is killed, presumably by her husband.

While kayaking along the beach near the Duke mansion, Alex rescues a boy who had swum out too far. This gets him invited in, and he makes the acquaintance of Duke's ex-wife, Cheryl. They flirt, and when a rendezvous is arranged, the killer shows up and shoots Cheryl. Alex is saved by Lauren's brother, Ben Dugger.

After a scientist is mysteriously killed while assisting a top-secret bioengineering project, government worker Alice Cable arrives at the bogs to serve as his replacement. Alice immediately notices that one of the team's swamp sensors has malfunctioned, Harry Ritter reveals that her predecessor was attempting to repair it when he was killed. Charlie tells Ritter a rumor about an evil paramilitary leader named Anton Arcane, who intends to hijack their operation. Alice introduces herself to Dr. Linda Holland and her brother, lead scientist Dr. Alec Holland, who takes her on a tour and encourages her to admire the beauty of the swamps.

After noting the disappearance of one of their workers, the group hears a loud bang and returns to the laboratory, where Linda shows off her recent breakthrough: a glowing, plant-based concoction with explosive properties. Sometime later, Alec notices that droplets of Linda's formula spawned rapid plant growth on the surfaces they touched. Suddenly, a group of paramilitary agents attack her and raid Alec's laboratory. A man resembling Ritter steps forward, but pulls off his mask and reveals himself as Arcane. When Arcane shoots Linda for attempting to escape with the formula, Alec grabs the beaker, but trips, causing the spilled chemicals to set him on fire. He runs outside and dives into the swamp to extinguish the flames as a series of explosions burst from the water.

Overnight, Arcane's henchmen destroy the premises and remove all evidence of the team's work. At dawn, a henchman captures Alice and attempts to drown her in the swamp, but a green, humanlike creature rescues her. Meanwhile, in his mansion, Arcane and his secretary realize that Alec's most recent notebook is missing. Alice runs to a nearby gas station to telephone her employers for help; the operator connects to Ritter, who claims to have been called away from the site before the attack. After revealing she stole Alec's last notebook, Alice waits for Ritter's return alongside the young gas station attendant, Jude, but Arcane's men arrive and chase her through the forest. Suddenly, the green humanoid creature, referred to as the Swamp Thing, appears and again scares the pursuers away and Alice escapes.

Alice and Jude boat around the swamp until they reach the dock near the laboratory wreckage. Multiple boats of Arcane's men close in on Alice and Jude, luring the creature from its hiding place among the reeds. Despite their bullets and grenades, the Swamp Thing engineers an elaborate boat crash. Moments after instructing Jude to escape with Alec's notebook, Alice hears the boy cry out in distress, but she is kidnapped before she can reply. The Swamp Thing finds Jude's lifeless body and presses a hand against his head, creating a greenish glow which instantly revives him. Regaining consciousness, Jude realizes the creature is a friend of Alice's and gives it the notebook for safekeeping. On Arcane's boat, Alice throws her kidnapper, Ferret, overboard, then dives into the water and swims ashore. Once on land, Alice bumps into the Swamp Thing, which calls out her name. Ferret chops off the Swamp Thing's arm with a machete, but the creature easily snaps Ferret's neck, causing Alice to faint. She awakens in the monster's embrace. The Swamp Thing speaks to her, and she recognizes it as Alec. Arcane's men follow her, capture the Swamp Thing in a net, and retrieve the final notebook.

That evening, Arcane invites Alice to a formal dinner party celebrating his duplication of the Hollands’ formula. Moments after giving a toast to prospective immortality, Arcane reveals that he secretly slipped the first dose to Bruno, who begins to convulse. The hulking man's body shrinks to half its size as he grows pointed ears and a misshapen skull. Arcane locks him in a dungeon alongside the Swamp Thing, asking the latter creature why the experiment failed. The Swamp Thing reveals that the formula does not produce strength, but instead amplifies a person's natural qualities, explaining that Bruno's timidity caused his diminished stature.

After locking Alice in the dungeon with them, Arcane returns to his study and drinks a glass of the formula. A beam of sunlight emitted through the door re-grows the Swamp Thing's missing arm, allowing the creature to free itself, Alice, and Bruno. Upstairs, Arcane transforms into a hairy, boar like beast, and descends to the dungeons. There, he discovers that his captives have escaped through an underwater tunnel leading back to the swamp. Sometime later, Alice and the Swamp Thing emerge from the water, followed closely by Arcane, who stabs Alice with a sword. The Swamp Thing revives Alice then kills Arcane. The creature turns to leave, but Alice pleads for him to stay so that she can help him rebuild his work. He refuses, but promises to return to her soon. Moments later, Jude emerges from the trees and embraces her as they watch the Swamp Thing lumber away through the marsh.

The book is in the format of a fictional memoir written by Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, with brief interludes from a soldier named Myakes, who was close to Justinian throughout much of the emperor's life. The book follows Justinian's time before and after taking the throne, as well as his overthrow, mutilation and exile in the Crimea, his subsequent return to power (following a possibly apocryphal nose-job), his insane quest for revenge, and his finally being unseated a second time and executed. Myakes, who had been blinded and exiled to a monastery after Justinian's final defeat, listens as a fellow monk named Brother Elpidios reads the memoir out loud, and occasionally interrupts with commentary or criticism. In the end, Elipidos, who had been contemplating writing his own history, hides the book as he believes he could not properly separate the good from the evil in Justinian's life.

Franny Bettinger (Mary Stuart Masterson) has had a privileged and wealthy upbringing. One summer she takes a job at a halfway house where she finds herself personally affected by the people she meets. Despite facing hostility due to her background, Bettinger becomes determined to teach the youngsters that they are important and can succeed in life. Unfortunately, she faces opposition from her parents and from her supervisor.

''Ninja Gaiden'' features a ninja named Ryu Hayabusa who seeks revenge for the death of his father and gradually finds himself involved in a sinister plot that threatens the entire world. The story opens with Ryu's father Ken seemingly killed in a duel by an unknown assailant. After the duel, Ryu finds a letter written by Ken which tells him to find an archeologist named Walter Smith in America. Before Ryu can find Walter, he is shot and kidnapped by a mysterious young woman; she hands him a demonic-looking statue before releasing him. Ryu then finds Walter who tells him of the demon statues he and Ken had found in the Amazon ruins. Walter tells Ryu of an evil demon named Jashin, that "SHINOBI" defeated, whose power was confined into "Light" and "Shadow" demon statues. Ryu shows Walter the "Shadow" demon statue given to him by the woman, but during their conversation, a masked figure, named Basaquer, suddenly breaks into the cabin and steals the Shadow statue. Ryu gives chase, defeats the masked figure, and retrieves the statue; but when he returns he finds that Walter is dying, and the Light statue is missing. Right after Walter dies, three armed men confront Ryu and tell him to come with them.

Ryu is taken to an interrogation room, where he meets Foster, head of the Special Auxiliary Unit of the Central Intelligence Agency. Foster tells him about a more-than-2000-year-old temple Walter discovered in some ruins in the Amazon. He continues saying one day Walter mysteriously sealed the ruins, and nobody has since ventured near them. Foster explains to Ryu they have been monitoring the activity of someone named Guardia de Mieux, also known as "the Jaquio", who recently moved into the temple. Using the statues, the Jaquio plans to awaken Jashin and use it to destroy the world. Foster asks Ryu to go to the temple and eliminate him. After making it into the temple, Ryu discovers the Jaquio is holding captive the girl who handed him the "Shadow" statue earlier. He orders Ryu to give up the demon statue after threatening the girl's life. Ryu is then dropped from sight through a trapdoor and into a catacomb.

After fighting his way back to the top of the temple, Ryu encounters Bloody Malth, whom he defeats. As he is dying, Malth reveals that he was the one who dueled with Ryu's father, that his father is still alive, and Ryu will meet him as he presses onward. When he reaches the temple's inner chambers, he discovers his father was not killed, but was possessed by an evil figure instead. He destroys the evil figure, which releases Ken from its hold. Jaquio, enraged by Ken's release from his possession, shows himself; he tries to kill Ryu immediately with a fiery projectile, but Ken throws himself in front of Ryu and takes the hit. Jaquio is killed by Ryu during the ensuing fight, but then a lunar eclipse occurs, causing the demon statues to transform into Jashin. After Ryu defeats the demon, Ken tells him he does not have much longer to live because of Jaquio's attack. He tells Ryu to leave him behind in the temple while it collapses, and to take the young woman with him. Afterwards, Foster, communicating via satellite, orders the girl to kill Ryu and steal the demon statues; she chooses to be with Ryu instead of carrying out the order. The two kiss, and the girl tells Ryu her name, Irene Lew; they watch as the sun rises.

The film centers on two main characters: Lazarus Redd, a deeply religious farmer and former blues guitarist, and Rae Doole, a young sex addict. Lazarus' wife and his brother were having an affair, which has left him bitter and angry. Rae's boyfriend Ronnie Morgan leaves for deployment with the 196th Field Artillery Brigade, Tennessee National Guard, and in his absence, she indulges in bouts of promiscuity and drug use. During one of Rae's binges, Ronnie's friend Gill Morton tries to take advantage of her. She laughs at his advances, comparing him unfavorably with another man, and he severely beats her. Believing she's dead, Gill dumps Rae and leaves her by the side of the road wearing only a shirt and panties and drives away.

Lazarus discovers Rae unconscious next to the road the next morning and brings her home to nurse her back to health. Lazarus goes to see Tehronne – the man who Lazarus thought had beaten her – and learns of her promiscuity. Over the course of several days, Rae, delirious with fever, occasionally wakes up and tries to flee from Lazarus. He chains her to the radiator to keep her from running away. After Rae regains her wits, Lazarus announces that it is his spiritual duty to heal her of her sinful ways and refuses to release her until he does so. Rae makes several attempts to escape, and even briefly has sex with a teenager who helps out on Lazarus' farm.

She eventually comes to tolerate her position. Lazarus buys her a conservative dress to wear, plays the guitar for her, and feeds her home-cooked meals. Lazarus' pastor and close friend, R.L., visits Lazarus at his house and discovers that Lazarus is imprisoning Rae. The pastor tries to reason with Lazarus and the group shares a meal.

Meanwhile, Ronnie returns to town after being discharged from the National Guard due to his severe anxiety disorder. While searching for Rae, who has disappeared, he meets Gill, who informs him that Rae cheats on him whenever he is out of town. Ronnie attacks Gill, steals his truck, and continues searching for Rae.

In the morning, Lazarus frees Rae, having decided that he has no authority to pass judgment on her. Rae chooses to stay with Lazarus of her own will. That night during a thunderstorm, at Rae's request, Lazarus sings a song for her, "Black Snake Moan" by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Later, Rae and Lazarus take a trip into town, where Rae confronts her mother about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother's partner. Meanwhile, Lazarus has formed a budding romance with the local pharmacist, Angela. He plays a blues concert at a local bar, which Rae attends. Ronnie spots Rae and follows her to Lazarus' house. He confronts the pair with a pistol, but Lazarus talks him down and summons the pastor. Ronnie and Rae decide they are stronger together than apart and get married. While driving away, Ronnie suffers from a panic attack again and Rae begins to have one of her spells, but then they pull themselves together, and resolve to take care of each other.

Los Angeles-based English hitman Chev Chelios works for a crime syndicate led by Don "Carlito" Carlos. Chelios is contracted by Carlito to kill mafia boss Don Kim as members of the Triads have been encroaching on Carlito's business. Chelios goes to Don Kim and apparently murders him.

In the confusion, ambitious small-time criminal Ricky Verona uses the opportunity to conspire with Carlito against Chelios: Verona will kill Chelios so the Triads do not retaliate, and then take Chelios's place as Carlito's new hired gun. The morning after Don Kim's death, while Chelios sleeps in his apartment, Verona, his brother Alex, and several henchmen break in and inject Chelios with a Chinese synthetic drug which inhibits the flow of adrenaline, slowing the heart and eventually killing the victim. Chelios wakes to find a recording left by Verona showing what he has done. Furious, Chelios smashes his TV and heads out.

Chelios phones Mafia surgeon Doc Miles, who informs Chelios that to survive he must keep his adrenaline pumping through constant excitement and danger, and he is unsure if the antidote exists. Chelios keeps his adrenaline up through risky and dangerous acts, which include picking fights with other gangsters, reckless driving and motorcycling, taking illegal drugs and synthetic epinephrine, fighting with the police, and having public sex with his girlfriend Eve.

Chelios visits Carlito at his penthouse and asks him to help find an antidote, as well as to find and kill Verona and his crew. Carlito says there is no antidote and only confirms that Carlito and Verona are working together. Carlito tells Chelios how he will use his death as a scapegoat against the Chinese. An angered Chelios leaves Carlito's penthouse to find Verona. Through Chelios' street contact, a transvestite named Kaylo, he finds Alex at a restaurant and unsuccessfully interrogates him about his brother's whereabouts before killing him. Chelios phones Verona through Alex's phone and tells him of his brother's death, prompting Verona to send thugs after Eve as a revenge. Chelios rushes to pick up Eve before Verona's thugs get to her. Chelios reveals his true profession to her and that he was planning to retire to spend more time with her.

Kaylo, who has been kidnapped by Carlito's men, is forced to call Chelios and tell him that Verona is at a Triad warehouse. Chelios goes there, finding Kaylo's corpse and the henchmen. They reveal that Carlito ordered them to kill Chelios. Eve, who has followed Chelios, unexpectedly arrives, but then escapes with Chelios after a shootout with Carlito's henchmen. Chelios and Eve go to Doc Miles's place, where Miles explains that he cannot cure Chelios. Knowing that he will die soon, Chelios decides to take his revenge on Verona and arranges a meeting with him at a downtown hotel.

Chelios goes to the rooftop of the hotel and meets with Verona, Carlito, and his henchmen. Carlito takes out a syringe, filled with the same poison used by Verona. As he is about to kill Chelios by injecting the second dose into him, Don Kim, revealed to be alive as Chelios spared him after all, arrives with his Triads to assist Chelios and a shootout follows. During the battle, several of Don Kim's and all of Carlito's men are killed. Carlito tries to escape with his private helicopter, but Chelios manages to catch up to him and holds him at gunpoint. Before Chelios can kill Carlito, Verona sneaks behind and injects Chelios with the syringe, after which Chelios collapses. Carlito himself is betrayed by Verona, who shoots him dead and tries to escape with his helicopter.

Chelios manages to stand up, boards the helicopter, and engages in a fight with Verona. After some struggle, Chelios manages to pull Verona out of the helicopter and while mid-air, Chelios proceeds to snap Verona's neck, killing him. While falling, Chelios calls Eve on his cell phone to apologize for not coming back. Chelios hits a car, bounces off it and lands right in front of the camera. In the last shot, it is implied that his adrenaline is indeed still flowing fast; his nostrils flare, he blinks, and two heartbeats are heard.

In Quebec, a tribe of Algonquian agree in exchange for muskets to guide the "Black Robe" (Father Laforgue), and his 20-year-old French assistant Daniel Davost, for a few weeks upriver to a spot beyond a set of rapids. There, Father Laforgue travels onward to the Huron village of Ihonatiria where a Jesuit mission is already established. Along the way, Father Laforgue falls under suspicion of being a demon and his attempts to baptize (convert) his Algonquian guides are unsuccessful. He is captured by unfriendly Iroquois who torture him, but he escapes and eventually arrives at the fever-ridden Huron village. In exchange for promising them a "water cure" for the sickness the Indians agree to be baptized.

Wisely, the famous writer/adventurer, is tricked by his friend (played by Teddy Robin, the film's director) into helping him steal the dragon pearl. Samuel Hui plays Wisely in this big budget Hong Kong movie, with production units filming some scenes by the Great Pyramids, and many scenes in Nepal. There are car chases and crashes, chases by horsemen and plenty of fights along the way. ''The Legend of Wisely'' is a live action comic book. A lot of effort went into making this movie, and it shows as Wisely goes from one hazard to another, a Hong Kong version of ''Indiana Jones''.

The novel follows its protagonist, Josephine Alibrandi, the Australian Italian daughter of Italian immigrant parents. Josie lives in Sydney and attends a Catholic high school–where she is disillusioned with the cliques and social politics of her snobby peers. Her usually sophisticated, sassy demeanour is challenged when she is overcome with the pressures of her senior year of high school: the suicide of a male friend, and meeting her estranged father who is in Sydney on a business trip. She confides in a young man with a bad reputation, who slowly turns into a romantic interest for Josie. This relationship, mirrored by the tumultuous relationship with her father, forms the centre complications of the novel as Josie tries to navigate through the complexities and hurdles she faces as a young adult.

A police inspector is so intent on winning a round of golf against a vicar, despite his lack of ability at the game, that he employs his constable to furtively disentangle his ball from the odd spots in which it usually comes to rest - while his opponent looks for help from a higher power...

Said help takes on an increasingly miraculous appearance, to the extent of inanimate objects appearing to move in order to block the inspector's shots. However, when the vicar attempts to lie about the number of shots it took to free his ball from a sand trap he gets his comeuppance from a bolt of lightning.

In the final scene the entire game is revealed to have been a dream that the vicar had during a brief nap in church.

In the church hall, the Town Clerk is opening a meeting. It is to decide on Walmington-on-Sea's welcome to a visiting Russian worker, who has been made Hero of the Soviet Union for building 5,723 tanks. The Town Clerk puts Mainwaring in charge of the committee after a pompous speech, but Warden Hodges objects, thus forcing a vote, which overwhelmingly supports Mainwaring, who therefore takes charge. During this both Sergeant Wilson and Lance-Corporal Jones arrive late. Private Frazer suggests that, after a great deal of thought, he would like to offer the Russian a voucher worth £10 towards the cost of a funeral. Private Walker argues that that is no use, he would have to die to redeem it, whereupon Frazer comments "That's a risk I have to take". Private Godfrey again expresses his antipathy to "the reds" and so urges that the welcome should not be extravagant, and the vicar refuses to allow his choir to sing "The Red Flag". The committee decides to present a wooden key, representing the freedom of the town.

In Mainwaring's office, he enquires of Private Pike over Wilson's absence, and is annoyed to hear he is still at lunch, at 2.20pm. Mainwaring finds a letter in his in-tray addressed to "The Honourable Arthur Wilson" and assumes it is a joke. On Wilson's arrival he surprises Mainwaring and amazes Pike by asserting it is genuine: Wilson's uncle, a peer, has died, thus entitling him to be styled "The Honourable". On being asked where he had been at lunchtime, Mainwaring is furious to hear Wilson has been invited to join the golf club (even though Wilson doesn't play golf), as he has been "trying to get in for years". Wilson compounds Mainwaring's rage by announcing that they found him some smoked salmon for lunch, whereas Mainwaring had a "snoek fishcake at the British Restaurant". During this discussion Pike has telephoned his mother, who bursts into the office, and flings herself all over Wilson, although she does ask "It won't make any difference, will it?", to which Wilson assures her it won't. Pike, however, is too naive to understand the implication.

At the next parade, Jones recounts how the British officers in the Sudan who had the "Honourable" title always had a stiff upper lip, even after their heads had been blown off. Mainwaring addresses the parade and insists that Wilson must do his motorcycle training on the platoon's motorbike. Then the platoon practise grounding arms and applauding, just as the Town Clerk arrives. In Mainwaring's office he suggests tentatively that "the Honourable Arthur Wilson" should present the key to the Russian instead of Mainwaring. Mainwaring refuses point blank. Back on parade, they are interrupted by the verger and the vicar, who invite Wilson to join the PCC, and also ask if he would like a crest for his own private pew. Mainwaring and Wilson retreat to his office, where Mainwaring again refuses to step aside for Wilson when telephoned by Hodges. Mainwaring finally snaps and reveals his intense jealousy over Wilson's newfound title; Wilson however admits he resents his new social status, as the people of Walmington-on-Sea continually pester him. This only infuriates Mainwaring more, as he fancies that one should prize aristocratic titles, and admits if he had a title he would make himself a director of the bank. He reminds Wilson that, title or not, he is still Mainwaring's employee and that he had better learn his place.

Wilson is seen embarking on his motorcycle training dressed in khaki overalls. He wobbles unsteadily down the road, goes in and out of ditches and finally falls off in one; a car is seen coming to a halt to help him.

At the welcoming parade, a band, the Home Guard, the Wardens and the Nurses are lined up on the green. The visitor, Mr Vladislovski, arrives in his car, and makes his way to the podium. The Mayor makes a one sentence speech, then Mainwaring makes a much longer one, but Mr Vladislovski, through his interpreter, reacts angrily, accusing the VIPs greeting him of not being genuine workers, with soft clean uncalloused hands. He rushes to his car, and produces Wilson from inside, whom he insists is a genuine worker, with oily hands, toiling alone in the countryside. He presents Wilson with the key representing the freedom of Walmington, and departs.

While a group of young women are frolicking in the countryside, a satyr appears and forces one woman to receive and perform oral sex and then have sex with him. Then the other women come and put him to flight.

Shortly after the Columbine High School massacre, Union Intermediate High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma becomes one of many schools around the country to increase security measures to prevent school shootings.

Brandi Blackbear writes Stephen King-inspired horror stories and dresses in a goth style. Her defiance attracts hostility from people at her school. False stories of threats of violence were circulated, and the combination of her writing and authorities' natural hyperawareness following Columbine led to her being suspended. When some of her fellow students later saw her checking out a book on world religions, including Wicca (as research for her stories), they immediately branded her a witch, and eventually accused her of casting a spell that made a teacher sick. Fear of her spread through much of the school, and she was once again suspended.

Finally, her parents went to the American Civil Liberties Union, where they were told they have a strong case against the school for violating her civil rights. The ACLU sued the affluent school for $10 million, even though the Blackbears were not sure they deserved that much based on what Brandi had suffered. Still, the ACLU argued that the school would not take any lesser claim seriously. When the school offered a settlement, the Blackbears refused. They were not interested in the money, despite needing it; what they really wanted was to have their story heard in court to inform the public that the school had mistreated Brandi. The judge ruled to dismiss the charges rather than going to trial, and ordered the Blackbears to pay $6000 in court fees, which they could not afford. Eventually it was agreed to drop the fees if the Blackbears drop their appeal. Earlier that day at school however, Kimberly (the most popular girl in school, and Brandi's main tormentor) tries to interview Brandi for the school newspaper but she declines, and also, everyone at school expresses their admiration for Brandi, causing Kimberly to lose her popularity.

After faking the suicide of his online persona "Larry", Josh Swensen has hidden in Boulder, Colorado under the pseudonym of Mark and enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is kidnapped by his old friend Beth, who persuades him to return him to his "Larry" persona and run for office. She suggests he runs for Massachusetts state representative in the Congress, but he decides to run for U.S. President.

He has difficulty maintaining his austerity, problems with his girlfriend and ex-girlfriend, a threat from his nemesis betagold, self-identity problems, and the rather unusual problem of running for U.S. President. Among other problems is the problem of almost being killed by an opponent in the candidacy for president. In this book, the fictional Congress passes a constitutional amendment to lower the presidential age requirement to 18.

Connie is a fifteen-year-old girl who loves nothing more than spending time with her friends at the plaza and flirting with the boys she meets there. She is frustrated by her family and her life at home, where her mother scolds her for her vanity and continually compares her to her older sister, June. One summer night, she and a friend go to the drive-in restaurant at the plaza, and while Connie reflects on how the music playing in the background “made everything so good.” After a while, Connie leaves the restaurant with a boy named Eddie. On their way to Eddie’s car, Connie notices a boy with shaggy black hair staring at her from his gold car. He tells Connie “Gonna get you, baby,” and draws an X in the air with his finger, but Connie ignores him.

One Sunday, Connie’s family goes to a barbecue at her aunt’s house, and Connie stays at home. She sits out in the yard, dreaming of boys she has been with in the past. When she opens her eyes, she is disoriented and goes to listen to the radio in the house. She becomes completely absorbed in the music, and after some time hears a car coming up the drive. Though she stays inside the house, Connie can see there are two boys in the car, which is a gold jalopy convertible. The driver behaves as if there’s nothing unusual about his being there and apologizes for being late. The boy in the passenger seat simply plays music on a transistor radio. Though Connie is reluctant to speak with the driver, once it becomes clear they have the same taste in music, she begins to engage more in conversation. The boy tells Connie his name is Arnold Friend and tries to convince her to come for a ride. Eventually, Connie remembers that he is the same boy she recently saw at the restaurant. Friend now begins telling Connie things about her own life, speaking in a lilting voice “as if he were reciting the words to a song.”