During the late 12th century, about 100 years after the Norman conquest (1066), the Normans have removed the native ruling class, replacing it with a new monarchy, aristocracy and clerical hierarchy.

Thomas Becket is a Saxon protégé and facilitator to the carousing King Henry II, who transforms into a man who continually invokes the "honour of God". Henry appoints Becket Lord Chancellor to have a close confidant in this position whom he can completely control. Instead, Becket becomes a major thorn in his side in a jurisdictional dispute. Henry finds his duties as king and his stale arranged marriage to be oppressive, and is described as the "perennial adolescent" by the Bishop of London. Henry is more interested in escaping his duties through drunken forays onto the hunting grounds and local brothels. He is increasingly dependent on Becket, a Saxon commoner, who arranges these debaucheries when he is not busy running Henry's court. This foments great resentment on the part of Henry's Norman noblemen, who distrust and envy this Saxon upstart, as well as the queen and Henry's mother, who see Becket as an unnatural and unseemly influence upon the royal personage.

Henry finds himself in continuous conflict with the elderly Archbishop of Canterbury, who opposes the taxation of Church property to support Henry's military campaigns in France ("Bishop, I must hire the Swiss Guards to fight for me – and no one has ever paid them off with principles!"). During one of his campaigns in coastal France, he receives word that the old archbishop has "gone to God's bosom". In a burst of inspiration, Henry exercises his prerogative to pick the next Archbishop and informs an astonished Becket that he is the royal choice.

Shortly thereafter, Becket sides with the Church, throwing Henry into a fury. One of the main bones of contention is Thomas' excommunication of Lord Gilbert, one of Henry's most loyal stalwarts, for seizing and ordering the killing of a priest who had been accused of sexual indiscretions with a young girl, before the priest can even be handed over for ecclesiastical trial. Gilbert then refused to acknowledge his transgressions and seek absolution.

The King has a dramatic secret meeting with the Bishop of London in his cathedral ("I have the Archbishop on my stomach, a big hard lump"). He lays out his plan to remove the troublesome cleric through scandal and innuendo, which the position-conscious Bishop of London quickly agrees to (thus furthering Henry's already deep contempt for church higher-ups). These attempts fall flat when Becket, in full ecclesiastic garb, confronts his accusers outside the rectory and routs them, causing Henry to laugh and bitterly note the irony of it all; "Becket is the only intelligent man in my entire kingdom ... and he is against me!" Becket escapes to France where he encounters the conniving yet sympathetic King Louis (John Gielgud). King Louis sees in Becket a means by which he can further his favourite pastime, tormenting the arrogant English. Becket gets to Rome, where he begs the Pope to allow him to renounce his position and retire to a monastery as an ordinary priest. The Vatican is a hotbed of intrigue and political jockeying. The Pope reminds Becket that he has an obligation as a matter of principle to return to England and take a stand against civil interference in Church matters. Becket yields to this decision and asks Louis to arrange a meeting with Henry on the beaches at Normandy. Henry asks Becket whether or not he loved him and Becket replied that he loved Henry to the best of his ability. A shaky truce is declared and Becket is allowed to return to England.

The remainder of the film shows Henry rapidly sinking into drunken fixation over Becket and his perceived betrayal. The barons worsen his mood by pointing out that Becket has become a folk hero among the vanquished Saxons, who are ever restive and resentful of their Norman conquerors. There are comical fights between Henry and his frumpy consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine, his dimwitted son/heir apparent, and his cold-blooded mother, who repeatedly reminds her son that his father would have quickly had someone like Becket done away with for the sake of the realm. During one of his drunken rages he asks "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" His faithful barons hear this and proceed quickly to Canterbury, where they put Thomas and his Saxon deputy, Brother John, to the sword. A badly shaken Henry then undergoes a penance by whipping at the hands of Saxon monks.

Henry, fresh from his whipping, informs the barons that the ones who killed Becket will be found and justly punished. He then publicly proclaims to the crowd outside the church of his arrangement for Thomas Becket to be canonized a saint.

The film opens with a female high school student meeting a man and woman in a remote location. She is stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors. This is followed by similar murder committed by the same people.

The same couple follow another student who they have picked as their next target, but before they can kill her she is joined by an older man. Later they find her body in a park. She was also stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors in a copycat murder.

The film follows several different plot strands, including the psychological condition of the woman and her relationship with the man, the background of the student who was killed in the copycat murder, and the police hunt for the murderers.

It emerges that the female murderer has a split personality, and the man she is seen with is actually a vision of her dead father caused by her guilt over his suicide when she was younger. The copycat murderer was the police psychological profiler, who had been having an affair with the high school student.

By the end of the film the psychological profiler is dead, and the police blame him for all three murders. The real scissors murderer has a final vision of her father, in which he tells her that he always loved her and she was not to blame for his death. She is then free to be happy.

While Johan Julius Christian ("Jean") Sibelius is still a child, his father Christian dies; the family is facing a financial disaster and must sell their property. Young Sibelius finds a new father figure in Uncle Pehr.

At the beginning of his musical studies with Martin Wegelius, Sibelius adopts the name of his uncle Jean. Plagued with insecurity, he continues to study law and, on the advice of his professor, returns to the music that is close to his heart while not interested in the law.

Sibelius meets Aino, daughter of his artistic sponsor Elisabeth Järnefelt and his future wife; Sibelius also comes into contact with composers such as Robert Kajanus and Ferruccio Busoni. Aino is impressed by the works of her writer friend Juhani Aho. During a one-year scholarship in Berlin, organized by Wegelius in 1889, he has to face the critical needs of his teacher Albert Becker. Sibelius deepens his friendship with the writer Adolf Paul. During his stay in Berlin, Uncle Pehr dies.

After returning from Berlin, Sibelius declares his love to Aino. Shortly after the engagement he begins a study visit to Vienna, where he establishes important social contacts. There, however, his plans to pursue a career as a violinist fail. Sibelius is plagued with jealousy when it is discovered that Juhani Aho has expressed his love for Aino in a novel.

When Sibelius returns to Finland, he and Aino get married. Sibelius celebrates his first success with his symphonic poem Kullervo. Soon the first daughter Eva is born. When Russian Tsar Alexander III died in 1894, Sibelius' friends worry about how Russian rule in Finland will develop under the new Tsar Nicholas II.

The Sibelius family grows with the birth of more daughters; Sibelius, however, focuses entirely on composition, which leads to an upheaval of the marriage. Shortly afterwards Sibelius's mother Maria dies. Sibelius and Kajanus challenge the escalation of Russian censorship with a performance of Sibelius Finland's patriotic symphonic poem.

On the other hand, Sibelius soon faces the loss of his daughter Kirsti, who dies of typhus. During a stay of the Sibelius family in Rapallo, Italy, one of the surviving daughters falls ill, but recovers to the family's great relief. Sibelius composes his second symphony in Rapallo, the premiere of which will be a great success.

In building their home, Ainola, on Lake Tuusulanjärvi, the Sibelius couple face financial problems. Sibelius's sick sister has to go to the sanatorium; Sibelius himself suffers from ringing in his ears and the consequences of his drinking habit; after an operation for a tumor, Sibelius stops smoking and drinking.

After composing the King Christian Suite, Sibelius writes the Jääkärimarssi for the troops fighting against Russia during the October Revolution. As a result of the riots, the Red Army searches for weapons in his home. Due to the composition of the Jääkärimarssi, Sibelius has to flee with his family.

In old age, Sibelius burns his plans for an eighth symphony.

Cara-Ethyl (Kylie Sparks) is an eccentric and sheltered girl on the eve of her eighteenth birthday who desperately dreams of an exciting life. But she's left with her blind, clueless (but well-meaning) mother (Julie Hagerty), a pest of a brother and made-up friends (Cara pretends she has a friend for her mother).

All that is changed when the pizza man, Matt Firenze (Ethan Embry), comes to the door. Soon, Cara persuades Matt to allow her to go with him on his deliveries. As the night progresses, Cara-Ethyl and Matt impart their wisdom and learn from each other, and both are forced to evaluate their lives.

18-year-old Danny d'Angelo, an alumnus of Benjamin Franklin High School in New York City, lives in an apartment with his mother and a charitable sister named Marie. One day in July, he discovers they have inherited the Hotel Majestic, a long-closed facility in Bethany, Pennsylvania — and along with it, $8,000 in unpaid taxes (equal to $ today). Danny's great-aunt Theresa once owned the place, but died before she could pay them off. Unknown to them, a firm called Pritchard Chemicals is willing to acquire the property for its Fox River project, and turn it into a chemical waste dump.

Danny discusses the scenario with two friends: a would-be entertainer named Silk Davis, and an athletic type named Spikes McClanahan. To earn enough money for keeping the Majestic, Danny attempts to open a bank account, while Silk and Spikes become suburban salespeople—but to no avail. Afterward, the three disguise themselves as members of the Boy Scouts, and successfully sell a lot of mint cookies to office workers.

Danny eventually makes Marie proud, not only with his earnings, but with a bundle of food supplies for a few needy neighbors. Soon, he and his friends travel to Hawley on a decorated van, but the worn-down state of the Majestic catches them off-guard. Rockefeller G. Harding, a residing hermit, gives them a tour that leaves the newcomers more appalled. They begin to renovate the building and transform it into "The New Hotel Majestic...For Kids Only", promising "MTV in every room" once it re-opens. But several of the townsfolk express their displeasure over what could happen to their town, and even take measures to keep Danny and friends out of their lives.

Meanwhile, Rockefeller suggests that Danny recruit stockholders to manage the hotel. In doing so, Danny scouts the New York streets and hires many of his friends for that purpose. Arriving in Hawley, the stockholders of Majestic Enterprises are as dismayed as Danny, Spikes and Silk previously were; the luxury they expected of the Majestic is nowhere in sight. Instead, they are put to the task of fixing up the place within a month, after which inspection will take place.

A mother tells her daughter a real life fairy tale of a "Princess Charming" and her Sleeping Beauty. Heather (Lassez) is in love with her girlfriend Cindy (Mitchell) until one day Cindy "wakes up" and breaks up with Heather, saying she wants a "real prince".

Heather works as a make up artist at Rolling Headstones Funeral Home in Los Angeles, "making dead rock-stars look good" for their next album covers. One day she is working on the body of musician Sno Blo (Rose McGowan). Her co-worker Vince (Vince Vieluf) brings his new girlfriend to the funeral home. It is Cindy, who is moving back to Los Angeles and wants to be friends with Heather.

Before Sno Blo is buried, the members of her band have a photo shoot with her at her grave side. Heather does the makeup. The photographer's assistant Clea (Clea DuVall) flirts with Heather and gives her her telephone number, but Heather can only think about Cindy. Cindy arrives with Vince and tries to persuade the remaining members of the band to let her be their manager. When Vince ruins the opportunity for her, she gets angry with him and tells Heather she'll be staying with her.

When Heather gets home, she finds Cindy sleeping in her bed. She kisses Cindy to wake her up, and asks for some kind of a response. Cindy tells Heather that she can kiss her if she wants to, but not to expect anything back from her. Heather tells Cindy to get out of her bed and telephones Clea. Later, Heather practices her makeup techniques on Clea and they kiss.

At the end, the narrator (Heather) is joined by Clea to finish telling the story to their daughter.

In his New York City apartment, a young boy named Josh Morrison stares through his telescope at an object falling from the sky. It is a golf-ball-sized metal ball that flies through the window and lands in his fishbowl, quickly draining the water along with the goldfish. He decides to show it at his school's science class presentation.

Some months later, a massive fireball crashes into the water near Liberty Island. It is revealed to be a spaceship that resembles a human, controlled by 100 tiny humanoid aliens. Its Captain pilots the spaceship from the command deck located in its head, with the help of his second-in-command Number 2, and researcher Number 3. The spaceship looks very human, and displays numerous superpowers, but the aliens don't know how to make the "ship" act like a human. A superstitious cop named Dooley desperately searches for the alien.

The aliens need to save their planet, Nil, from an energy crisis. They need salt, which they plan to take by draining the Earth's oceans using the metal ball, so they have to recover the ball. After the spaceship is hit by Josh's single mother, Gina Morrison while driving, the Captain decides to befriend Gina and Josh. He tells them his name is Dave Ming Chang, based on a quick scan of common Earth names. At Gina's home the crew see their missing ball in a photograph taken at the science presentation. After having breakfast with Gina, "Dave" goes to Josh's school where he pretends to be a substitute teacher and eventually is able to talk to Josh alone. Josh tells him that the ball was taken from him by a bully. With Josh's help, Dave takes the metal ball back from the bully.

The Captain (via Dave) spends some time with Josh and Gina and realizes that humans are more advanced than they originally thought. The crew observes humans displaying feelings and love, such as witnessing Gina's painting or a homeless man offering to share his blanket with Dave when he sleeps in a doorway. The Captain decides to cancel the plan to drain the oceans because it would destroy life on Earth. The police track Dave down using the impression of his face found in the dirt at the crash site and they arrest him. After spending so much time on Earth, most of the crew begin to exhibit new "feelings", adopting Earth's culture, mannerisms and general laid-back attitude. Number 2 decides that the Captain and the rest of the crew's changing behavior is unacceptable and takes command of the "ship", imprisoning the Captain. Under Number 2's command, Dave breaks out of the police station and another attempt is made to arrest him. Number 3, who has become infatuated with the Captain, becomes jealous of Gina. She first cooperates in the command change but later agrees with the Captain's view on humans. Both are caught by Number 2 and they are expelled from the spaceship. In the meantime, Number 17, a young, fun-loving alien, jumps out of the "ship" while drunk from the alcohol Dave has imbibed. The Captain apologizes to Number 3 for ignoring her. He admits that he too loves her and wants to be with her. Back at the police station, Dooley discovers Number 17 in his coffee and interrogates him to find out where Dave is going.

Number 2 takes Dave to the harbor, where he tries to throw the metal orb into the ocean, but is stopped by the Captain and Number 3, both of whom managed to gain reentry back onto the ship. They convince the rest of the crew that the real Captain is in charge again. Reinstated, he orders Number 2 to be stuck in the ship's "butt" forever. The metal orb meanwhile slips out of Dave's hand and rolls into the ocean. The Captain attempts to retrieve the orb but is told that they only have enough power to either retrieve it or return home. The Captain decides to save the Earth and the rest of the crew agrees. The ball, thrown in the ocean by Number 2, is retrieved. Dave powers down while Dooley and his partner catch up and point their guns at him. With no power, Dave's shields are disabled, leaving the crew defenseless. Josh tries to tell the police officers that Dave is harmless but is ignored. He then grabs Dooley's taser which he uses on Dave, recharging him. The Captain and Number 3 reveal themselves to the police officers who stand down. The Captain says goodbye to Josh and Gina saying he now understands love. Number 17 is then returned to Dave by Dooley. About to fly away, a team from the FBI arrives and throws a net over Dave. While the FBI agents wrestle the body down, "Dave's" crew evacuates to one of the ship's "lifeboat" shoes, activate the engines, detaches the shoe and heads home to Nil, leaving behind both the ship and Number 2. While in the lifeboat, the Captain asks for Number 3's hand in marriage. She accepts and they kiss.

The story centers around the life of a young boxer named Ryuuji Takane and his sister Kiku, who is his coach. Ryuuji and his sister both inherited their father's talent for boxing with Ryuuji inheriting his strength and techniques while Kiku picked up his talent for analysis and strategy. In the past, their father was a famous boxer. Ryuuji and Kiku went away from home to train and become famous in order to help their lonely mother. On the way to stardom, they have to defeat the strongest challengers all over the world.

In ''Ring ni Kakero 1'', the characters are briefly introduced, telling the story from the moment Ryuuji and Jun Kenzaki (his eternal challenger and supposedly best friend) fight for the National Boxing Title and having both achieved stardom. Ryuuji's sister then tells the story from the beginning which starts from when Ryuuji is the finalist in a local youth championship and had to compete against Kenzaki, the latter winning after an almost tie and K.O. one-to-one fight.

Afterward, most of the series tells about Ryuuji being the successor of Kenzaki (as the latter was terribly injured and almost crippled), who competes in the Japan National Boxing Championship, where he encounters strong and deadly opponents, including Ishimatsu Katori (a comic relief, but also a strong fighter), Takeshi Kawai (who specializes in the upper jab technique; he is also a pianist and also likes to cheat) and Kazuki Shinatora (who specializes in the Rolling Thunder technique; he is a former kendo practitioner, who retired when he challenged his father due to his cruel training).

Later on, the Jr. Japan team facing Blackshaft's team was adapted into an anime. Ryuji, Jun, Katori, Kazuki, and Takeshi represented Japan. Blackshaft had no intention of taking Japan seriously in a boxing match so he recruits Mick, leader of the Great Angels New York Branch (originally the Hells Angels in the manga), a deathrow inmate Monster Jail, Missie Charnel, a mysterious androgynous boy boxing champion known for his unhealthy obsession with his own beauty that knows no bounds (even in the ring) as well as that in which he savors reducing the "pretty" faces of any opponent he faces in the ring into mush, along with hypnotic powers that he casts upon his opponents to leave them as sitting ducks for his attacks and high-speed punches and fancy footwork, and N.B. Forrest, also known as the emperor of the south and a Ku Klux Klan member (in the manga). The second season ends with The Shadow clan, formed by a boxer who used the sweet science as an assassination art, aiming after Team Japan.

Carnelle (Holly Hunter) enters the Miss Firecracker beauty pageant which her hometown of Yazoo City, Mississippi, stages every Fourth of July, hoping to emulate her cousin Elain's (Mary Steenburgen) win some years previous. Carnelle was taken in as an orphan by her genteel cousins after the death of her mother and grows up promiscuous, brash, unfeminine and lacking in grace. Carnelle's closest friends and relatives think she is heading for a big disappointment instead of a triumph at the pageant, but Carnelle is ever hopeful.

When her male cousin, the eccentric sociopath Delmount (Tim Robbins), decides to sell the house they both live in to make money, Carnelle becomes even more determined to win, viewing it as a way to escape her small town existence. Elain returns to the town to give a speech at the pageant after a breakup with her husband. Carnelle insists Elain let her wear the red dress in which she won the contest, thinking that will guarantee her success. Elain delays giving Carnelle the dress and makes excuses as to why she cannot have it while pretending to be supportive.

Carnelle surprisingly gets on the shortlist for the pageant when one of the other contestants pulls out. Without a red dress she breaks into a locked room in the house previously occupied by a sick relative and takes an old dress to wear. She comes last at the final and is frustrated by her failure. Back at the house, she discovers Elain had brought the dress with her all along and had been lying to her. She confronts Elain about this, realizing the pageant is not the most important thing after all, then leaves the house and goes to the town observatory and watches the pageant fireworks display.

Bindi Sue Irwin and her late father, "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, try to spread the idea of conservation by teaching the world about many different types of animals and explain why they are important.

Rosa Lynn Sinclair, an elderly woman, lives in a Chicago housing project with her daughter Loretta and her two grandchildren, four-year-old Tracy (who is autistic) and thirteen–year-old Thomas. Disappointed in Loretta's life choices and afraid of the troubled circumstances surrounding her grandson Thomas, Rosa Lynn decides to send her daughter and grandchildren to visit with her brother-in-law in Mississippi for the summer.

Loretta, a drug addict, declines to go, especially since her uncle Earl lives in the dry and rural part of Mississippi and already juggles his business and a wife, Annie, who has Alzheimer's disease and is being cared for by a housekeeper. Before they depart, Rosa Lynn pawns a silver candelabra, a family heirloom they refer to as "Nathan", the name of their slave ancestor. Exiting the pawn shop, Loretta throws the pawn ticket in a wastebasket, but then retrieves it, intending to redeem Nathan later for drugs.

Earl, a wise man of few words, welcomes the trio to rural Mississippi. Earl puts Loretta to work in his chicken joint, Just Chicken, where she initially has trouble handling the work and the demands of a schedule. Eventually, however, the family begin to find strength in their roots, and start to rebuild their lives, with Thomas teaching Loretta enough arithmetic to be able to waitress and thus make more in tips, Loretta becoming friendly with a nice local customer named Carl (Nigel Shawn Williams), and Tracy actually saying her first words.

While a few calamities ensue, one involving Earl teaching Thomas about guns and the other when Annie wanders outside unsupervised, by the end of the summer the initially sullen Loretta decides to stay on and make her life in the delta. In the final scene, Earl reveals that Loretta's great-great-grandfather, a slave named Nathan, was traded for the silver candelabra. Nathan's son Jesse stole back the candelabra, which has since been passed through the generations, along with Nathan's story.

Players take control of (renamed Kicker in ''Kicker'', renamed Lee in other ports), who has just mastered the secret of Chin-style Shaolin martial arts. He then encounters the triad , also responsible for the assassination of his master , and is trapped within their . He attempts to escape and enact revenge with his new-found skills.

Alexander Johannison, a nuclear physicist working at the United States Atomic Energy Commission, is mystified when his Geiger Counter starts failing to detect radioactivity. Over a period of time, his colleagues also notice the same strange events, but when he finally reports to his boss, no-one will take him seriously and he realises that he is the only one who is still aware of the existence of radioactivity.

Thinking that maybe an enemy has removed all knowledge of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons and is about to invade the United States, he goes home and finds a stranger there talking to his wife. The stranger, who looks like an impossibly perfect human, explains that he is an entity from 'outside the Universe'. He has been assigned to perform an 'operation' on humanity to save them from a potential nuclear holocaust. As part of the operation, all knowledge of radioactivity has been removed from humanity for five years. Also, all radioactive elements no longer exist. After the Pause, about one hundred people, including Johannison, will have the task of re-educating humanity in the peaceful use of nuclear power.

The story ends on a sinister note, as, in discussing the visit with his wife, Johannison points out that the visitor at one point referred to the Earth as "the yard", mistakenly using its own context in the reference rather than ours. Johannison concludes that it regards the Earth as a "barnyard" and humans as mere cattle who have to be controlled.

An introductory montage establishes Australia of 1851 – a place of both wealth and poverty, transformed by the discovery of gold. This causes a massive drain in manpower which puts a strain on the country. The Governor of Victoria, La Trobe, appoints an army officer, Rede, commissioner of the goldfields and orders him to tax the miners via licences, and to keep law and order.

In 1854 Ballarat, civil engineer Peter Lalor arrives to prospect for gold with his Italian friend Rafaello Carboni. They discover the license fee system is strictly enforced. The miners are upset at the conditions under which they work. Lalor and Carboni befriend a Scottish sailor, Tom. Lalor meets a school teacher, Alicia, and the two begin a romance.

Governor La Trobe resigns and Governor Hotham arrives, ordering Rede to force people off the gold fields in order to encourage them back to other jobs. Things get militant on the goldfields after the murder of miner James Scobie by James Bentley goes unpunished. The miners riot, despite Lalor's efforts and burn down Bentley's hotel. Governor Hotham sends in the military to keep the peace.

The miners form the Ballarat Reform League and Lalor emerges as their leader. They rally under the Eureka Flag.

Lalor and the miners arm themselves and make camp at the Eureka Stockade. The rebellion is overpowered by the British Army. Many of the miners are killed and Lalor is injured, ultimately having to have his arm amputated. However the reforms wanted by the miners are ultimately pushed through and Lalor is elected to Parliament.

At the court case the authorities are over-confident of a guilty verdict against the ring-leaders – which would mean the death penalty. However, the jury find all not guilty. This paves the way to abolition of the digger licences and sale of the land.

The film ends at a public auction of farmland at Ballarat where Lalor makes the winning bid. When asked to give his name the crowd gasp and a trooper rides up to him. But rather than be arrested he is praised.

B'Elanna's past catches up to her when ''Voyager'' encounters a Cardassian missile speeding through space in the Delta Quadrant.

Years ago, when she and Chakotay were members of the Maquis fighting the Cardassians, the Maquis got hold of a Cardassian missile and on her own initiative she reprogrammed it to strike Cardassian territory. The weapon, ''Dreadnought'', was launched and never heard from again; it was thought to be destroyed. ''Voyager'' chances upon it here on the other side of the galaxy, and it is headed directly for a populated planet called Rakosa V. It must be stopped; millions of lives are at stake.

B'Elanna is struck with horror at the thought of her deception wiping out a civilization and she vows to stop ''Dreadnought'' at any cost. Meanwhile, the disgruntled Maquis Michael Jonas betrays ''Voyager''′s crew by informing the Kazon of the situation. B'Elanna beams onto ''Dreadnought''′s control deck to try to shut it down. This is a tough task, since she had originally armed the missile with a sophisticated battery of countermeasures to make it invincible. The missile's AI accuses B'Elanna of tampering with ''Dreadnought'' and working for the Cardassians. ''Dreadnought'' then lies to B'Elanna and she returns to the ship. She realizes she must find a loophole in her own plans in order to persuade the missile that it should stand down from its plan of attack. She engages in a match of wits against herself (''Dreadnought'' was reprogrammed to speak with B'Elanna's voice, reflecting just some of the alterations B'Elanna herself had made to its programming) to stop the threat before it is too late. Captain Janeway is willing to destroy ''Voyager'' to save the millions of people on the planet. At the last minute B'Elanna cuts through ''Dreadnought's'' power core with a phaser and ''Voyager'' beams her out, banking away from the planet as the missile explodes.

Caught between a constricting budget and an inane American Intelligence Community, Canadian Secret Service agent Darryl Freehorn works as a liaison with the U.S. State Department to solve international conspiracies and busts American prescription drug smugglers. Freehorn is frequently met with skepticism by American officials when he introduces himself as an agent of the CSS, to which he always responds with "We have one, too." Costar Joanna Canton plays Naomi Lutz, a smitten assistant to Freehorn bucking for a job as a full-blown agent. Occasionally over-enthusiastic and she cites her knowledge of the ''West Wing'' on NBC as her qualification for a trip to Washington, D.C.

After Jeff Tremaine is hospitalized, the crew calls upon the player to step up and fill the role as director of ''Jackass''. The player's goal is to collect the best footage from up to 36 different stunts throughout the game to create an all-new season of ''Jackass'' for MTV. All stunts have a minimum requirement for content before MTV will approve an episode for broadcast. These requirements are broken up into specific objectives for each stunt. The new season requires seven episodes of ''Jackass'' footage.

''Voyager'' is holding a party to celebrate "First Contact Day", the day Earth was first openly contacted by an alien civilization (the Vulcans). Included in the celebration is an ancient jukebox playing the favorite music of warp drive pioneer Zefram Cochrane along with his favorite food (cheese pierogi). It has been 315 years since then, thus making this day April 5, 2378.

During the party, the crew of ''Voyager'' is surprised to detect a Talaxian settlement hidden within an asteroid belt which is thousands of light-years away from the nearest Talaxian territory.

A curious Neelix travels toward the Talaxians' asteroid along with Paris and Tuvok aboard the ''Delta Flyer'', but they are shot down and crash before they can make contact. A company of miners claims the asteroid belt, and they are hostile toward any intruders into their territory.

The Talaxians rescue the ''Voyager'' crew and Dexa, a widowed mother, takes a liking to Neelix. The feeling becomes mutual as the two get to know each other. He learns that Dexa's people emigrated to the asteroid and constructed a small city by dismantling the very spacecraft that brought them there. The miners have been pressuring the Talaxians to leave the asteroid which they would like to take for its minerals.

Having been repeatedly driven from one planet to another, the Talaxians would prefer to stay and make the asteroid their permanent home, but have no way to defend themselves against the miners' cooperative and no means for leaving if they wanted to. Neelix being the resourceful person he is, begins to devise a plan for the colony to defend themselves. Using the miners' existing shield technology they plan to erect a defensive shield around the asteroid. They must act quickly as not to arouse suspicion. Neelix coordinates the shield placements by using his old shuttle which ''Voyager'' has had docked away. Neelix deflects bomb attacks from the miners, loses weapon control and attempts to ram the last mine. The ''Delta Flyer'' springs to aid Neelix and helps destroy the bomb. Together they fend off the miners' attacks.

After the miners retreat, Neelix returns to ''Voyager''. He is distressed that he must leave Dexa and her son, Brax, and his fellow Talaxians on the asteroid. After a bit of soul-searching, he decides that ''Voyager'' will be all right without him, and he joins the Talaxians on the asteroid. ''Voyager'' continues toward home, and Captain Janeway bestows on Neelix the title of Official Starfleet Ambassador to the Delta Quadrant.

The crew surprise Neelix with an honor ceremony to mark his departure. The crew lines up in the corridors from the turbo lift to the shuttle bay. Tuvok surprises Neelix by doing a small dance step, something the Talaxian had unsuccessfully tried to convince him to do earlier. Neelix, touched by the final gesture, leaves ''Voyager''.

Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming for General Electric (GE), invites Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) to a GE diabetes charity golf event. Jack hopes that bringing Tracy along can help him get close to GE CEO Don Geiss (Rip Torn). At the event, Tracy becomes the hit of the party, but quickly begins to feel that the reason he was brought along was to be "the funny black man". Tracy insults Geiss by accusing him of not hiring more black people, which results in Tracy and Jack not being invited to golf along with Geiss. Jack blames Tracy for this, but Tracy doesn't care, as he tells Jack that he cannot help but drop "truth bombs". Jack explains to Tracy that his failure to "play the game" with movie producers in the past has ended his movie career. Later, to make amends with both Jack and Geiss, Tracy gives a heartfelt speech about his daughter battling diabetes, which moves Geiss. This results in Geiss inviting Jack, Tracy, and Tracy's daughter to the Vineyard. Tracy admits to Jack that he does not have a daughter, which prompts Jack to say, "Let's have a casting session on Monday."

Meanwhile, at the 30 Rock studios, ''TGS with Tracy Jordan'' head writer Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and her writing staff are discussing potential topics to use in the show. J. D. Lutz (John Lutz) suggests one of his sketches, "Dancing with the Hobos", which Liz criticizes, thus embarrassing him in front of everyone. Later, Liz talks to Greta Johansen (Rachel Dratch), the show's cat wrangler. At the same time, she overhears Lutz calling her the C word. Outraged by this, Liz tells Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) and Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander) about what Lutz called her and wants to fire him. Frank reveals that Lutz's poor behavior is due to the passing of his grandmother. After it is pointed out that she has been a terrible boss to the staff, Liz begins acting nice, but this backfires when they take advantage of her. Angered by this, Liz confronts the writers about their actions, and tells Lutz she knows what he called her. Liz warns all of them that if they call her that "horrible word" she will fire them.

At the same time, Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer) struggles with his feelings for another page, Grace Park (Charlyne Yi) who demonstrates affection for him. Kenneth explains to Pete that he is afraid of "disgracing the peacock" by becoming romantically involved with her. Throughout the episode, it is shown to be sexually awkward for the two of them during their job, though towards the end, Kenneth confronts her with his feelings about her. Their kiss is interrupted by Kenneth's work, which allows him to abruptly forget about her.

King Rudolf IV (Sellers) dies in a balloon accident upon the celebration of his eightieth birthday. In order to secure the throne, General Sapt and his nephew Fritz travel to London, where the King's son, Rudolf V (Sellers), resides and lives through the day in London's pleasure establishments; but the King's demented half-brother Michael (Kemp), thinking that he is the better claimant, sends an assassin after them. Hansom cab driver Sydney (or Sidney) Frewin (Sellers), the new King's half-brother from an affair with a British actress, rescues Rudolf from an assassination attempt. Once his resemblance to the King is noticed, Frewin is hired by the general ostensibly as the King's coachman, but actually to play the role of a decoy. The ruse is quickly uncovered, however, when during an attack by Michael's men the royal guardsmen address Frewin as their new king, and the two look-alikes get acquainted.

In an unattended moment, Rudolf is captured and brought to Michael's castle of Zenda. Out of necessity, Frewin has to keep masquerading as the King for the coronation ceremony. Princess Flavia, Rudolf's fiancée (Frederick), is perceptive enough to see through the ruse, and after Frewin and the general have confided in her, she quickly becomes Frewin's trusted ally and love interest. Complicating the scheme on Frewin's side is the jealous Count Montparnasse whose wife (Sommer) has become infatuated with Rudolf, and on Michael's side by his mistress, Antoinette, who is wildly jealous about the prospect of Michael marrying Flavia and in turn is the love interest of the slightly unbalanced Rupert von Henzau, Michael's second-in-command.

After several assassination attempts, Michael attempts to lure Frewin into a trap. While the trap fails, Frewin, acting as Henzau's coach driver, is recognized and captured upon arrival in Zenda. Frewin and Rudolf escape with Antoinette's help, and when Sapt and his men arrive at the castle, Henzau switches sides and aids Frewin and Rudolf against Michael, opens the castle gates and rides away, telling Sapt that he will report for duty next week. Michael and his men attempt to capture Rudolf and Frewin, but they jump off the battlements into the moat, and Sapt has Michael arrested for his treachery. Assuming Frewin's identity, Rudolf pursues his interests in the countess and the London gambling tables, while Frewin marries Princess Flavia and becomes king of Ruritania.

An Irish boy named Benny, who is on an all-Ireland hurling team, journeys to Tunisia because of his father's new oversea job. He is determined to hate and find fault with the country and annoys everyone. Then he meets another boy called Omar. They develop a friendship through Omar's "telly-speak" English. Benny's father bans Benny from seeing Omar because he thinks that Omar is a bad influence and because Benny went off with Omar when he was supposed to look after his brother. Benny endures punishment for being with Omar, but that doesn't stop him from running away with him the second his parents trust him again in order to rescue Omar's drugged and hospitalized sister Kaheena. Benny is exposed to real life in Tunisia, actual pain and suffering bigger than losing a sports match, and realizes just how lucky he is after Omar drowns in a flood (although, this is, in fact, arguable, as the bracelet Benny gave to Omar was found on a tree).

Peyton Westlake is still searching for the key to creating a permanent liquid-skin formula to repair his burned face and hands. After Westlake, as his alter-ego Darkman, stops a criminal exchange spearheaded by corrupt businessman and crime boss Peter Rooker, he is approached by Dr. Bridget Thorne. Thorne, one of the physicians who saved Westlake's life following his brutal attack at the hands of Robert G. Durant, convinces him that she wants to help perfect his liquid skin, and also repair his nervous system, allowing him to finally regain some of his sensory loss. Using a laboratory Thorne has set up in an abandoned industrial complex, Westlake manages to create a small amount of permanent liquid skin, which does not break down in sunlight as his other samples have.

Thorne then reveals she is actually Rooker's mistress. Rooker arrives and explains that he desires the super-human strength that Westlake has at his disposal. The two plan to use Westlake as a guinea pig to unlock the secrets behind his strength. Westlake is captured and his liquid skin sample and research are taken. Westlake has an electrical shock device implanted in his body and is put through a series of tests. Eventually, he manages to remove the device and escape Rooker's grasp.

Westlake, trying to learn more about Rooker, encounters his neglected wife Angela (Roxann Dawson) and her young daughter, Jenny. At first concerned, he eventually develops feelings for the two upon realizing how lonely and empty his life is. He uses his liquid skin to assume Rooker's identity and pours his energy into being a loving father and husband, including seeing Jenny perform in her school's production of ''Beauty and the Beast''.

Rooker uses the data from Westlake's tests to create a super-strength formula. He gives it to his men, and orders them to assassinate an idealistic district attorney at a public gathering. Westlake arrives and is able to stop the assassination attempt. Rooker, discovering how Westlake has stolen his identity, murders Thorne and takes his own family back to Thorne's laboratory, holding them hostage. He then injects himself with the super-strength formula, and fights Westlake when he comes to rescue Angela and Jenny. Westlake reclaims the sample of permanent liquid skin during the fight, but his research disk is destroyed by Rooker. Darkman finally gets the upper hand and tricks Rooker into falling in an industrial shredder, killing him.

A damaged natural gas line then explodes, causing the lab to catch fire; Westlake is able to save Angela and Jenny, but Jenny's face is terribly burned. Westlake decides to use the liquid skin to repair Jenny's face rather than his own. After Angela thanks Westlake for saving her daughter, he leaves them, vowing to continue his work on the formula while fighting crime as Darkman.

The film concerns the residents of a large terraced house in London between Christmas 1938 and September 1939. Among them are the landlady, Mrs Vizzard (played by Joyce Carey), who is a widow and a believer in spiritualism; Mr and Mrs Josser (Wylie Watson and Fay Compton), and their teenage daughter Doris (Susan Shaw); the eccentric spiritualist medium Mr Squales (Sim); the colourful Connie Coke (Ivy St. Helier), the young motor mechanic Percy Boon (Attenborough) and his mother (Gladys Henson).

Percy is in love with the Jossers' daughter and turns to crime to raise money to impress her with, but he bungles a car theft and finds himself accused of murder. Mr Josser digs into his retirement fund to hire the boy a lawyer. Mr Squales testifies against Percy, but in the process exposes to his fiancée Mrs Vizzard the falsity of his claims to be able to contact the dead and to predict the future.

Percy is found guilty, but his neighbours rally to his defence. With the assistance of Mr Josser's staunchly socialist Uncle Henry (Stephen Murray), they gather thousands of signatures on a petition to win him a reprieve. At the end of the film, Percy's supporters march through the rain to the Houses of Parliament, only to discover just before their arrival that clemency has already been granted.

A man, Vatanen, wakes in a high-rise apartment block. After a minimal comment to his bedraggled wife, he heads off to his work as a deodorant advertising agent.

After being reprimanded by his boss that his standards are slipping, he's sent with a colleague, Miettinen, on a business trip. En route, Miettinen outlines his future plans within the rat race, while Vatanen points out that the product they sell is damaging to the ozone layer. During a business meeting, he dreams of nature and an attractive woman.

En route to Heinola, their car hits a hare. Vatanen gets out to investigate, and heads into the woods, where he remains with the injured hare. Miettinen gets impatient and drives on. He later returns, but cannot find Vatanen.

Vatanen takes the hare to a veterinarian, and receives treatment for its leg, plus dietary advice.

Vatanen sells his boat via telephone, and arranges for the money to be sent to Heinola. After narrowly evading his wife and colleagues, he manages to collect the money.

Vatanen gets a permit and better dietary advice for his hare in Southern Savonia. He buys a lottery ticket in Kuopio and wins some stereo equipment.

Vatanen heads into the forests, chatting to the hare. After attempting to sell the stereo, he's arrested by the police. Upon release, he stays in a fisherman's hut, where he meets a man (Hannikainen) who's obsessed with the notion that the President of Finland, Kekkonen, has been substituted by a younger double.

During a forest fire, he saves a drunken moonshiner, Salosensaari, whose factory has burned down. He finds refuge in a cabin, but is chased off by its owners, who threaten to shoot him, wanting to eat his hare.

He finds another cabin, but again his peace is disturbed by a group of tourists, keen to meet a real hermit. He tires of them and again heads off. The next recluse he meets attempts to make an animal sacrifice of the hare, tying it to a rock.

After sneaking home and briefly encountering his wife, he reaches the conclusion that he will never be truly free until his records are erased from government computers, which he endeavours to do.

He wakes in Turku with amnesia, and with a lady, Leila, he'd apparently met during a lengthy drinking spree in Helsinki. He discovers that, despite being married, he's somehow become engaged to her (she's a lawyer).

After police questioning, he's put on trial, and then in prison for his recent misdemeanours.

His new future wife wants him to grow up and conform to her work expectations.

The hare escapes from its cage, as does Vatanen from his prison cell, leaving the engagement ring behind.

Dennis Markham (Ian Bannen), a prominent Member of Parliament is reported by a London paper to have been seen leaving a woman's home on the same evening as she is visited by a military attaché from East Germany, Markham's loyalty to his country is questioned. He is hounded by the media and forced to resign.

The author of the newspaper exposé, Nick Mullen (Gabriel Byrne), continues his work alongside colleague Vernon Bayliss (Denholm Elliott) who suspects that Markham was framed. When Bayliss dies from a supposed heart attack the same night as Bayliss' flat is ransacked by someone who was not after money or valuables, Mullen suspects something deeper at work.

With the help of Markham's secretary, Nina Beckman (Greta Scacchi), Mullen continues to investigate the affair despite a break-in at his flat, surveillance and other attempts to stop him.

Mathematician Mauno Mutikainen (Pasanen) is accidentally pronounced dead as a result of an operation where a splinter is being removed from his finger, which he got by scratching his head. He is then cloned into a "test-tube adult", a play on the phrase ''test-tube child'', named ''Richard Ilyevitch Jyrä'' by his creator, father and mother, Dr. Jyrä (Hämäläinen), his name is intended to appeal to both American and Soviet sensibilities.

Loiri and Ahonen play the roles of gangsters attempting to kidnap Jyrä and/or Mutikainen, thinking they are the same person. Both would reprise their roles for 1980's ''Tup-akka-lakko''. Additionally Loiri portrays a slew of characters such as a drunk hockey-fan attempting to get to Moscow and making a guest-appearance as Uuno Turhapuro at the end.

Simo Salminen once more plays a character named after himself who is the head of a detective agency called ''Simon Enkelit'' (an obvious take on ''Charlie's Angels''). The angels were portrayed by Rita Polster, Kirsti Wallasvaara, Ritva Vepsä and Merja Tammi.

Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) arrives in a village of the Valli di Comacchio area where he has been employed to restore a fresco depicting what appears to be the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, which has been painted on a rotting wall of the local church by a mysterious, long-dead artist named Legnani. While temporarily taking up residence in the house that had been previously owned by the two sisters of the deceased painter, Stefano begins a romance with a new, beautiful schoolteacher, Francesca (Francesca Marciano), meanwhile learning from various townspeople that the painter had been a madman who had derived his art from real life. Specifically, Stefano learns that the artist — assisted by his two equally-insane sisters — had been a killer who brutally tortured people to death as inspiration for his horrific paintings — a practice that had likely been used for the very painting he is in process of restoring. As Stefano is discouraged for his task throughout the town, some of the villagers are brutally killed — including his employer — and he comes to suspect that their murderer is trying to deter him from discovering the full truth behind the artist and his ominous legacy within the sleepy community.

Artemio Cruz, a corrupt soldier, politician, journalist, tycoon, and lover, lies on his deathbed, recalling the shaping events of his life, from the Mexican Revolution through the development of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. His family crowds around, pressing him to reveal the location of his will; a priest provides extreme unction, angling for a deathbed confession and reconciliation with the Church (while Artemio indulges in obscene thoughts about the birth of Jesus); his private secretary has come with audiotapes of various corrupt dealings, many with gringo diplomats and speculators. Punctuating the sordid record of betrayal is Cruz's awareness of his failing body and his keen attachment to sensual life. Finally his thoughts decay into a drawn-out death.

Following the decommissioning of the patrol vessel ''Nagare'' (ながれ), Daisuke Senzaki, now a Japan Coast Guard (JCG) rescue diver, is posted to the 10th Region Mobile Rescue Unit, based at Kagoshima Air Station. A plane crashes in the stormy seas, where Senzaki battles the elements to keep two victims alive, as he struggles to keep everyone on a wreckage which has become their lifeboat. Senzaki is only able to hold onto an adult male, while a young boy struggles to hang on by himself. Senzaki manages to keep the boy alive, but the heroic gesture by the man drowns from sacrifice. He soon becomes plagued with guilt and self-doubt due to this episode, as he had pledged not to let anymore victims die.

Senzaki's girlfriend Kanna Izawa takes time off her job and travels a long distance by car to see him. As the couple check into a hotel, Izawa locks herself out of her room, forcing her to spring a handmade wedding dress surprise on Senzaki, accompanied by a fashion designer. Izawa intended to fulfill the plans of marriage. Senzaki, still traumatised, is not prepared for marital commitments, and his reluctance drives a wedge between the two. Izawa leaves heartbroken in spite of the best efforts of Senzaki's buddy, Tetsuya Yoshioka, to mediate.

En route to a routine training exercise, news arrives that a passenger ferry, the ''Clover'', has run aground with 4 hours left to evacuate. Senzaki and Yoshioka are among the first divers on site, deployed by helicopter. Their stark prognosis of the ship's fate is compounded by revelations from Coast Guard crisis command: 620 passengers, 195 fuel-laden vehicles, with limited time to escape. Senzaki's rescue efforts takes a dramatic turn when he discovers his girlfriend Izawa on board. The disheartened Izawa had chosen to take the ferry instead of driving home as a fateful decision. Senzaki tells Izawa to abandon her belongings and proceed to the lifeboats, including the handmade wedding dress. As the couple part ways, Izawa asks for Senzaki's reassurance that they will meet again afterwards.

While attending to an injured pregnant staff member, Megumi Honma, Senzaki becomes separated from the rest of his team as Homma informs him of a faster route to the escape hatches. The shortcut brings them to the vehicle deck of the ferry, where they meet an irritable passenger, Shinichi Ebihara, tending to his precious Ferrari. A sudden lurch wreaks havoc on the vehicles and ignites the petroleum, causing a massive explosion. The fire forces the 4 scrambling for cover on another deck where they become disoriented; trapped with no idea where to go. Ebihara eventually suffers an injury to his left thigh. They radio for help and find a duct in the room bears the markings "68-4T".

The frantic JCG crisis command centre tries to locate the room which the 4 are trapped in, as Shimokawa and other officers pore over the schematics of the ship, desperate for some feasible route of escape. Shimokawa decides they have no choice but to swim underwater to attempt an escape into another level of the ship. Despite protests of the others, Shimokawa insists that his route is the only option left. Senzaki and Yoshioka bring the pregnant Honma and injured Ebihara through the perilous underwater swim, The 4 eventually complete the swim into another level which was yet unflooded and remain there.

As the last of the passengers have been evacuated, Senzaki, Yoshioka and the 2 victims are the only ones unaccounted for, still cut off from radio contact with no help. Shimokawa, since his promotion to shore command position from his days with Senzaki on the ''Nagare'', is forced to grapple with a tough decision: to continue the recovery of the missing 4 with other rescue divers or withdrawing all teams to avoid suffering casualties in a likely fruitless rescue attempt. Further explosions and casualties force Shimokawa to withdraw other divers; a decision met with great disdain and frustration from the on-site divers who comply with reluctance.

Now safe on shore, Izawa notices the return of the rescue divers from the sinking ship and worriedly inquires the whereabouts of her boyfriend. Her worst fears are confirmed when JCG officials make the press release stating the names of the missing divers and passengers, and that rescue efforts have been suspended due to the danger posed to rescuers, as she watches helplessly at the raging inferno on Clover, while the JCG command has little idea where to proceed and must make more swift decisions, awaiting their confirmation of success by radio...

Two days after arriving in New York for college, Cal loses his virginity to a girl who picks him up. From this encounter Cal picks up an STD, but this is an unusual one: it turns its victims into "peeps"—parasite positives—raving cannibalistic monsters with unusual strength, night vision, heightened senses, and an affinity with rats. Cal himself turns out to be immune, but he's a carrier—he gets the strength and senses without the nasty side effects. But before he knows it he has infected others.

Cal is recruited by the Night Watch, a secret government organization that has existed for centuries to contain the disease and its victims. His first assignment is to capture all the girls he's infected. But soon Cal realizes that there is more going on than he has been told: the disease is changing in response to mysterious forces from under the earth that are waking up after centuries of slumber.

Four years after the events of the first film, after three men are discovered hideously mutilated (their faces have been removed) and strung up among New York City's high-tension wires, Detective Klaski (Bruno Campos) stumbles upon a link: Each of the men knew entomologist Remy (Alix Koromzay), a teacher at an inner-city high school. Klaski considers Remy to be a prime, albeit unlikely, suspect in the killings until he witnesses for himself the shape-shifting creature that has been stalking Remy: an intelligent mutant insect with the face of its previous victim that wants to mate with Remy.

Klaski, Remy and a pair of her students get trapped inside the school as the creature hunts them down. Remy gets separated and runs into the creature which does not harm her but instead seems interested in her. Remy then gets cornered and the creature attempts to give her pizza. Meanwhile, a special forces unit, headed by the militant leader known only as Darksuit (Edward Albert), gets ready to fumigate the school with poisonous gas. After all the trapped humans seem to have escaped the fumigation, and with the help of a heroic Klaski in Remy's case, inspection teams following through find the creature's recently vacated husk and, later on, the mangled corpse of Klaski.

It appears that the creature, impersonating Klaski, has been caring for Remy's well-being with a mind to fulfill its base purpose. Unfortunately for it, when they finally meet in a suspenseful setting in Remy's apartment, she decapitates it. However, it is not dead as cockroaches can live up to two weeks without a head and Remy and one of the students, who is now living with her, are left wondering how to handle the situation.

The film is set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world where a once thriving age of man and cyborgs has come to an end. Cyborgs are now hunted for their parts. Cash (Haje), a female cyborg learns from Doc Edford (Margaret Avery) that she is somehow pregnant.

She searches for the fabled city of ''Cytown'' to find Evans (Zach Galligan), a creator of cyborgs, to find out more about her condition. She is followed by Anton Lewellyn (Richard Lynch) and his assistant Jocko (Andrew Bryniarski). Lewellyn is able to sustain himself by hunting cyborgs for their parts. Though he has long wanted to find Cytown (the last haven for cyborgs), he becomes obsessed in getting Cash and her child.

Leon is a photographer who wants to capture unique gritty shots of the city. He is crushed when, instead of giving him his big break, gallery owner Susan criticizes him for not taking enough risks. Emboldened, he heads into the city's subway system at night, where he takes pictures of an impending sexual assault before saving the woman. The next day, he discovers she has gone missing. Intrigued, he investigates reports of similar disappearances. His investigation leads him to a butcher named Mahogany, who he suspects has been killing subway passengers for the past three years.

Leon presents his photos to the police, but Detective Hadley disbelieves him. Leon's involvement quickly turns into a dark obsession, upsetting his girlfriend Maya, who is also disbelieving of his story. Leon follows Mahogany onto the last subway train of the night, only to witness a bloodbath. The butcher kills several passengers and hangs their bodies on meat hooks. After a brief scuffle with Mahogany, Leon passes out on the train. He awakes the next morning in a slaughterhouse with strange markings carved into his chest.

A concerned Maya and her friend Jurgis examine Leon's photos of Mahogany, leading them to the killer's apartment. After breaking in, Jurgis is captured, though Maya escapes with timetables that record over a hundred years of murders on the subway. She goes to the police but finds Hadley still skeptical. When Hadley presses Maya to return the timetables, she demands answers. At gunpoint, Hadley directs her to take the midnight train to find Jurgis. Leon heads to a hidden subway entrance in the slaughterhouse, arming himself with several knives.

He boards the train as Mahogany completes his nightly massacre and corners Maya. Leon attacks the murderer with a knife, and the two fight in between the swinging human flesh. Human body parts are ripped, thrown, and used as weapons. Jurgis, hung from a meat hook, dies when he is gutted. The train reaches its final stop, a cavernous abandoned station filled with skulls and decomposing bodies. The conductor appears, advising Leon and Maya to "step away from the meat." The true purpose of the abandoned station is revealed, as reptilian creatures enter the car and consume the bodies of the murdered passengers. Leon and Maya flee into the cavern. Mahogany, battered, fights to the death with Leon. After Leon stabs a broken femur through his throat, Mahogany only grins in his dying throes, saying, "Welcome!"

The conductor tells Leon the creatures have lived beneath the city long before the subway was constructed, and the butcher's job is to feed them each night to keep them from attacking subway riders during the day. He picks up Leon and, with the same supernatural strength as the deceased butcher, rips out Leon's tongue and eats it. The conductor brings Leon's attention to Maya, who has been knocked unconscious and is lying on a pile of bones. The conductor forces Leon to watch as he cuts Maya's chest open to remove her heart. He says that, having killed the butcher, Leon must take his place.

Detective Hadley hands the train schedule to the new butcher, who wears a ring with the symbol of the group that feeds the creatures. The killer walks onto the midnight train and reveals himself as Leon.

White-haired Dr. Jekyll has secretly locked himself in his laboratory, administering himself with a vial of formula. He slumps into his chair with his head on his chest. As the drug slowly takes effect, a dark-haired, taloned beast with two large fangs now appears in the chair. After repeated use, Jekyll's evil alter ego emerges at will, causing Jekyll to knock a little girl down in the street and even to murder his sweetheart's father (the local minister). The evil personality scuttles back to the laboratory only to discover that the antidote is finished and that he will have to remain as Mr. Hyde forever. A burly policeman breaks down Jekyll's door with an ax to find the kindly doctor dead from drinking poison.

Screenshot In ''Bonnie's Bookstore'', the titular character runs a bookstore which she has inherited from her deceased grandfather. One day while cleaning the attic, she discovers a series of paintings apparently created by him. The paintings appear to depict scenes from popular children's stories. In a flash of inspiration, Bonnie decides to become an author, writing updated versions of these classic stories while using her grandfather's paintings as the illustrations.

Each of the 50 stages in the game represents a chapter in a book. After completing a certain number of chapters, Bonnie finishes the book she's working on, receiving a congratulatory letter from her publisher and moving on to the next. Bonnie writes a variety of tales, especially fairy tales. Usually, each book is three chapters long.

In order to complete a given level or stage, Bonnie must use a letter from each physical location of the board. Creating a word with a tile which has not previously been used causes the color of the tile at that position to change. Bonnie has only a limited number of turns or moves (with each word consuming one turn) to use every tile position on the board. Creating a word with 6 or more letters adds an extra turn for each letter after 5 letters. At higher difficulty levels, more points are awarded, but the allowed number of turns decreases.

Unable to leave the germ-free confines of his sterilized bedroom for any real stretch of time, environmentally hypersensitive Marvin (Karl Geary) spends his days taking pictures of his neighbors from his window. Occasionally catching glimpses of his young sister Rosy (Alexis Dziena) hanging out with the neighborhood drug dealer, Marvin's lens remains mostly fixed on a mysterious neighbor known as the Garbageman (Lance Henriksen) and pretty neighbor Carmen (Rebecca Mader), while his slightly overbearing mother (Amanda Plummer) rests on the couch. As neighbors begin disappearing and mysterious figures move in and out of Marvin's viewfinder, the secluded voyeur begins to suspect that a sinister force is at work in his neighborhood. Though Rosy and Carmen are anxious to assist in a little detective work, the situation soon begins to spiral out of control upon the discovery that the Judas breed is far from extinct.

The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and the curator of the rare books collection of the Library of Congress both are found dead. The Speaker has been killed by a sniper at a party while the head of the rare books collection dies from "unknown circumstances." Oliver Stone and the Camel Club become suspicious, although initially they indulge what they believe is his overactive imagination. Stone and his cohorts discover that Seagraves had been selling American intelligence secrets to terrorists in the Middle East, compromising intelligence efforts in the region. However, when they are followed and ask the Secret Service for help, the followers disappear, and the Camel Club becomes interested in their activities. Seagraves kidnaps and subsequently tortures Stone for information. Annabelle Conroy is introduced as a con artist, who after pulling off a 40 million heist against an Atlantic City Casino owner (Jerry Bagger) is on the run for her life. Bagger wants to find and kill Annabelle and her con team. Alex Ford from the previous novel reappears, and in the climax Seagraves is killed by a knife thrown at his carotid artery by Stone who turns out to be an ex-CIA killer. Alex Ford and his agents take Seagrave's remaining collaborators into custody. One of Annabelle Conroy's collaborators in the heist is tortured for information by the angry casino owner, who finds out the general area in which she is living (Washington, D.C.). The novel ends with a set-up for ''Stone Cold'', the third novel of the Camel Club series.

The show revolves around Samantha Best (Charity Shea), who receives a scholarship to attend Charles University, a fictional Ivy League school in Boston, Massachusetts, despite bouncing between foster homes for ten years. The first season included episodes involving cocaine addiction, child molestation, and suicide. The second and final season picked up eight months after season one with many characters absent and replaced with new characters and focused romantic entanglements.

A nurse in the dispensary of an English hospital is suffering with a migraine, and accidentally dispenses the wrong medicines to three patients. The police and doctors have little time to locate the patients before the consequences are fatal.

All three patients are located. However, the husband (Johns) of the third uses the pills to kill his wife, who is already suffering from a terminal illness, and takes one himself to join her in death.

The eponymous Heathcliff is taken in, as a homeless child, by Mr Earnshaw who lives at the remote Yorkshire farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. Earnshaw's son Hindley (Jimmy Johnston) forms an instant antipathy to the wild and rebellious Heathcliff. His sister Cathy (Helen Hobson), however, finds in Heathcliff a soul mate, whose fiery passions feed her romantic nature.

Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable and their habit of wandering unchecked on their beloved moors results in an accidental injury. This invalids Cathy for a time, requiring a stay at Thrushcross Grange, the home of the Lintons (the cultured Edgar, and his sister Isabella). This contact with a more refined world seduces Cathy, spurring her to rein in her wild passions. The dazzle of wealth broadens her horizons, and her first taste of gentility results in the careless abandonment of her relationship with Heathcliff. The possibility of a future together for them in a world that required more prudent choices be made is despaired. Her acceptance of Edgar Linton's (Darryl Knock) marriage proposal throws Heathcliff into a tormented rage. In order to avoid daily confrontation with his loss of Cathy and to punish her with his absence, he travels abroad in an effort to improve his life, to match that of her husband.

Years pass and Heathcliff returns unexpectedly having amassed the extreme wealth he had sought, as well as wide experience. Hindley Earnshaw, now master of Wuthering Heights following the death of his father, has become a drunken bully still seething with hatred for Heathcliff. Hindley and Heathcliff fight, with Heathcliff winning Wuthering Heights as the prize. Heathcliff marries Edgar's sister, Isabella (Sara Haggerty), although he does not love her. He cruelly abuses her, as Cathy's marriage to Edgar continues to torment him. Cathy dies following a gruelling childbirth, having confessed her undiminished passion for Heathcliff and her error in having given herself in marriage to Edgar, a decision which has ultimately brought misery to all concerned.

Heathcliff endures years of torment following this loss, until his own death reunites the lovers in the afterlife.

The protagonist of the story, a professor of linguistic anthropology, is traveling in southern Morocco to the remote village of Aïn Tadouirt (a purely fictional location). He is fluent in the local dialects of Maghrebis. A largely sentimental journey, the professor seeks to rekindle a friendship he had enjoyed with a café proprietor ten years earlier, Hassan Ramani. To his dismay, he discovers that Ramani has passed away. The qaouaji who now runs the establishment, spurns the professor’s gratuitous and insulting efforts to enlist him in obtaining souvenir camel-udder boxes. The professor ignores the qaouaji’s undisguised hostility and arrangements are made to visit a source for the artifacts. Under cover of darkness, the qaouaji leads the professor into a local quarry, occupied by the nomadic and outcast Reguibati and abandons him there. The professor is instantly set upon by the tribe’s dogs and violently taken prisoner by the Reguibat. When he attempts to speak to his captors in a Moghrebi dialect, they instantly sever his tongue. Traumatized, he descends into lunacy and is trained by his Regubat masters to perform as a dancing clown. After a year of traveling with the tribe, he is sold to a member of the Ouled Nail tribe. As the Professor’s self-awareness begins to reemerge, he refuses to dance for his new master. Belieiving he is cheated, the villager murders a Reguibat for revenge, and the Professor finds himself in the custody of French authorities. He escapes from his confinement and flees into the desert.

The film is a comedy-drama that recounts the story of a family torn between modernity and tradition in Saudi Arabia.

Starring Pip Donaghy in the title role, the series follows the same plot as the original book, of a deranged scientist who discovers a formula by which to make himself invisible, but is driven to insanity by his inability to reverse the formula and is evoked to use his invisibility to terrorize those around him.

Dr. David Banner has been gainfully employed at the Joshua-Lambert Research Institute (as David Bannion) where he and a team of scientists are putting the final touches on a Gamma Transponder, which he intends to use to cure him of his ability to turn into the Hulk. He has not changed into the Hulk for two years since he met a young widow, Maggie Shaw, with whom he is romantically involved. By chance, he is recognized by a former student of his, Donald Blake. Blake reveals that, on an expedition in Norway, he was bound into possession of an enchanted hammer containing the soul of Thor, an immortal warrior banished by Odin to Earth. Thor is reluctantly compelled to serve Blake, who is unnerved by this. Thor damages equipment and angers Banner until he turns into the Hulk, who easily fights him off and leaves.

In the morning, Banner scolds Blake for setting back his experiment and demands that he and Thor make amends. Journalist Jack McGee hears of sighting of the Hulk and attempts to track him down. Thor laments his banishment from Valhalla and bonds with Blake at a bar, briefly entertaining the possibility of Thor using his powers to fight crime. A criminal organization within the Joshua-Lambert Institute seek to kidnap Banner and the Transponder, but the Hulk effortlessly dispatches them. The mob leader Jack LeBeau targets Dr. Shaw instead of Banner. Mob members disguised as police officers ambush Banner and Shaw and kidnap Shaw despite the combined efforts of the Hulk and Thor.

LeBeau blackmails Banner into handing over the Transponder in return for Shaw's life. Banner sabotages the Transponder so it cannot be used as a weapon, removing his chance of a cure. Hulk, Blake, and Thor ambush the gang's hideout and fight off a legion of gunmen to rescue Shaw. McGee is once again the subject of ridicule for his obsession with the Hulk and Thor. Blake and Banner both agree that Shaw has likely figured out that Banner and the Hulk are one and the same and that Banner should leave to protect her. Thor and Blake, now at peace with each other, say their goodbyes to Banner. Banner is forced to end his relationship with Shaw and once again leaves to find a cure.

Kōshi Inuzuka is a normal high school student aspiring to become a prosecutor after graduating. One day, a strange girl named Momoko Kuzuryū approaches him, revealing that they are betrothed and expected to produce a strong child together, although Kōshi does not accept this odd notion. Apparently the betrothal resulted from Kōshi's and Momoko's fathers having arranged the marriage. After Kōshi and Momoko's initial meeting, Kōshi realizes that Momoko is not just a normal — albeit strange — girl, as she has been trained by her father in a special form of martial arts known only to twelve families in all of Japan. Each of these twelve families correlates with one of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. Momoko's family is associated with the Dragon, while Kōshi's family is associated with the Dog. The Dragon family is the head of the six families of the west, whereas the Dog family is the head of the six families of the east.

Before long, it is revealed to Kōshi and Momoko that five of the six western families are out on a plot to assassinate Kōshi to prevent him from marrying Momoko, which would cement the twelve families together by bonds of blood. This assassination would be the start of a martial artist war, which would be the seventh such war of the twelve zodiac Masters of Japan. Kōshi must now fight for his life as Momoko protects him, hoping he will return her affection.

The novel is set in 1957, in the small town of Saitter, Louisiana, where 12-year-old Tiger Ann Parker lives with her mentally challenged parents. She tries to get the popular girl in her class, Abby Lynn Anders, to like her but fails because of one of her mother's childish outbursts. Because of this, Tiger isn't invited to Abby Lynn's pool party. Her best friend, Jesse Wade Thompson, tries to comfort her and kisses her. Startled, she rejects him and runs home.

When her beloved grandmother suddenly dies, Tiger faces the choice of either staying with her parents or moving in with her glamorous Aunt Dorie Kay in Baton Rouge.

Two scientists, who have taken refuge below the surface of Mars together with a hundred others, discuss what Earth used to be like before it was destroyed by nuclear war. They hope to re-establish their teaching and in time repopulate the dead radioactive surface of Earth.

Jack Murphy (Bronson), a hardened, antisocial alcoholic LAPD detective, frequently escapes the harsh reality that his ex-wife (Angel Tompkins) has become a stripper and his career is going nowhere by drinking. His world is turned upside down, however, when he is framed by ex-convict Joan Freeman (Carrie Snodgress) for putting her in prison earlier in his career.

Freeman murders the detective's ex-wife and her boyfriend and begins killing off his associates while framing him for the crimes. The same police force he works for places him under arrest with Arabella McGee (Kathleen Wilhoite), a foul-mouthed petty thief he locked away. Murphy escapes from jail while still handcuffed to McGee and they pursue the real killer. While in pursuit of Freeman, who has managed to kill all of those on her hit list save Murphy, Arabella is kidnapped by Freeman and taken to the building where she was first arrested by Murphy. Murphy calls for reinforcement and is met with skepticism. Murphy heads off to rescue Arabella, in the building he is stalked by Freeman who is armed with a crossbow. Meanwhile, Arabella is bound and gagged at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The cop following Murphy arrives and draws his gun on Murphy and reveals that he is working for a mob boss named Vincenzo, whose brother was killed by Murphy. Freeman quickly dispatches the cop with an arrow. Vincenzo tires of waiting and he and his two bodyguards enter the building, posing another threat to Murphy. Murphy easily dispatches the bodyguards before goading Vincenzo into trying to kill him. Vincenzo attacks Murphy but Murphy shoots him dead. Freeman sends the elevator down in an attempt to kill Arabella. Murphy saves her in the nick of time. But Freeman fires an arrow into Arabella's back, goading Murphy into a confrontation. She attacks Murphy with an axe and he knocks her over the railing of the staircase on the top floor. She manages to take hold of the axe which is wedged in the railing. She tries to get Murphy to help her. He stands and watches as she begins to slip. She yells at him to go to hell, he responds ladies first. With that she slips and falls to her death. Murphy is loaded into the back of an ambulance with a still alive Arabella, and they are taken to the hospital.

Sam Russell (Shiri Appleby) tells the story of her best friend Jules Michaels (Larisa Oleynik). They met at the age of 6 in a dance class. Over the years they become best friends. Sam dances, but Jules is a true dancer, with true passion towards it and views it as important as life itself. Unfortunately, her passion becomes impossible when it turns out she has cancer.

Even after the bad news has been confirmed, Jules has a hard time dealing with it and still insists upon going for dance. To decrease the rate at which the cancer is spreading, she starts going for chemotherapy, which leaves her very exhausted after each time. It also causes her hair to fall out. Jules gradually has no choice but to start accepting the fact that she has to stop dancing because her body is always too lethargic.

However, Jules stops the chemo to dance once more and auditions for Juilliard in NYC as it has always been a dream of hers to get in. It takes a lot out of her but it pays off and she gets accepted.

Not long after, though, Jules loses the fight to cancer and dies.

Sam opens the letter from Juilliard and replies: ''"Jules Michaels won't be attending Juilliard 'cause she died".''

An interstellar spaceship is stranded between the stars, but out of distance of the interstellar gases that the drive requires as fuel (the drive technology is not fully explained, but is possibly similar to a Bussard Ramjet). It is surrounded by clouds that do contain the required fuel, but with excessive quantities of impurities that can't be filtered out.

Anton Viluekis, the Fusionist, a highly sensitive (and eccentric) individual who is in charge of the ship's power, is unwilling to try any alternative methods of gathering fuel, as failure will reflect badly on his reputation. The crew cannot persuade him otherwise.

Louis Martand, a schoolteacher travelling as a passenger, suspects what the trouble is and realises, from his experience of teaching children, that there is an alternative; that of utilising the 'primitive' technology of chemical combustion. He manages to convey his idea via Cheryl Winter, a pretty female passenger, to the Fusionist who successfully tries it.

The teacher is confined to his quarters by the ship's captain, somewhat apologetically, and warned that he will receive no credit – it must be believed that the Fusionist was responsible for the success.

The narrative begins in an orphanage where Amy inadvertently brings her sailor doll to life. It continues on a ship where he has become captain and she has transformed into a doll herself. The book is a principally a coming-of-age tale and a nautical adventure involving pirates and the search for lost treasure. The story contains whimsical elements such as a sailing ship crewed by Mother Goose animals, but also has darker themes including the obsession with Biblical prophecy and numerology.

10-year-old Jess Aarons (Julian Coutts) is an aspiring yet shy fifth grader living in a financially struggling family. 10-year-old Leslie Burke (Julie Beaulieu) is the new girl at his school, just arriving on its athletics day. She enters a running event which she wins with ease, despite her classmates calling it a "boys only" race. Jess is, at first, quite sour about this and wants nothing to do with her, but her persistence in meeting him soon pays off, with them becoming friends. He shares his secret love of drawing with her; she shares with him her love of fantasy stories. Together they venture into the woods, where they go across a creek on the trunk of a partially fallen tree, and later build a "castle" (actually a small shed) on the other side. Here, they invent a whole new world, Terabithia, and it comes to life through their eyes, which they explore together. They base the Creatures of Terabithia on the people that give them a hard time at school.

Their teacher, Miss Edmunds (Annette O'Toole), notices Jess' artistic skills and decides to take him on a field trip to an art museum. He has an unspoken crush on her and does not want to share the trip with Leslie, so he goes without inviting her.

When Jess returns home, his family is worried sick, as they neglected to listen when he said he was going, then tells him the horrific news: Leslie died after trying to cross the fallen tree over a rain-swollen creek, only to fall in and drown, possibly hitting her head in the fall. Jess grieves for her, and he and his parents visit hers together.

Jess feels overwhelming guilt for Leslie's death, thinking that it would not have happened if he invited her along on his trip with Miss Edmunds. He is consoled by his father that their intense friendship should be kept alive for her sake. Later, after crossing the creek, he hears a girl's voice calling for help and finds his little sister, May Belle, on the fallen tree trunk, frozen with terror after trying to follow him across. He rescues her, takes a minute to comfort her, then invites her to be the new queen, who is delighted after being previously denied every opportunity to enter Terabithia. She and Jess bring it back in even greater splendor; he the king and she the princess, and they rule over the free people of the kingdom together forever.

Jesse "Jess" Aarons is an 11-year-old aspiring artist living with his financially struggling family in Lark Creek. He rides the bus to school with his younger sister, May Belle, where he avoids the school bully, Janice Avery. In class, Jess is bullied by classmates Scott Hoager and Gary Fulcher and meets a new student named Leslie Burke. At recess, Jess enters a running event, for which he has been training at home. Leslie also enters and manages to win, much to Jess' irritation. On the way home, Jess and Leslie learn they are next-door neighbors.

Later that day, it is discovered that Jess has a difficult relationship with his father, who spends more time with May Belle. Due to their financial struggles, his mother also forces him to wear his older sister's sneakers. One day at school, Leslie compliments Jess' drawing ability and they become friends. After school, they venture into the woods and swing across a creek on a rope. Jess and Leslie find an abandoned treehouse on the other side and invent a new world, which they call Terabithia. For the next few days, Jess and Leslie spend their free time in the treehouse getting to know each other.

Leslie gives Jess an art kit on his birthday. Jess becomes angry with his father for his attitude towards him and he loses his belief in Terabithia, and refuses its existence the next day at school. Later, Jess apologizes to Leslie by giving her a puppy, whom she names Prince Terrien (P.T). Once in Terabithia, they encounter various creatures, including a giant troll resembling Janice, squirrel-like creatures resembling Hoager, whom they name the 'Sqoagers', and 'Hairy Vultures' resembling Fulcher. At school, Leslie becomes frustrated by Janice Avery's bullying when she hears that she stole May Belle's Twinkies and that she charges for others to pee in which they chant that peeing should be free. As a result of all of that, Jess and Leslie play a prank on Janice by writing her a fake love letter supposedly from 8th grader, Willard Hughes, who Janice is in love with, and she is embarrassed in front of everyone on the bus. Leslie introduces Jess to her parents and they help paint their house. At school, Leslie discovers from Janice that her bullying is due to her abusive father, and the two become friends, with Janice later befriending Jess as well. Leslie accompanies Jess to church on Sunday in which she was glad she had come and that she was interested in the story of Jesus, but thought she did not have to believe it. May Belle sternly rebukes her that if she doesn't believe in the Bible that God would damn her to hell when she died. She denied it by saying that He was too busy running all the nature. Jess and Leslie take P.T. to Terabithia, where they fight off several creatures resembling their bullies, this time with the troll as their ally.

The next morning, Ms. Edmunds, the music teacher who Jess has a crush on, calls to invite him on a one-on-one field trip to an art museum. When Jess returns home, his father reveals that Leslie died after hitting her head in the creek when the rope she used snapped. Jess first denies it and runs to check on Leslie, but he notices the severed rope as well as emergency vehicles surrounding her house before eventually accepting her death.

The following day, Jess and his parents visit the Burke family to pay their respects. Leslie's father, Bill Burke, tells Jess she loved him, and thanks him for being the best friend she ever had, since she never had friends at her old school. Jess feels overwhelming guilt for Leslie's death, lashing out at both Hoager and May Belle, and imagining the "Dark Master" from Terabithia chasing after him before breaking down into tears, but his father comforts and consoles him by telling him to keep Leslie's memory alive. Jess decides to re-imagine Terabithia and builds a bridge across the river to welcome a new ruler. He invites May Belle to Terabithia and the siblings agree to rule together, with Jess as king and May Belle as the princess.

The harbor of Zanzibar becomes infested with a gang of vicious sharks, which makes it impossible for trading ships to dock. In an attempt to fix the problem, the Sultan charges his advisor, Aban-Khan, to bring twelve hippos from Africa into the harbor to keep the sharks away. His idea works well enough, but once the hippos are no longer a novelty and the people no longer feed them, they begin to starve. After the hungry hippos rampage through the city looking for food, Aban-Khan brutally slaughters all the hippos except one, a little baby hippo named Hugo. Hugo escapes across the sea to the city of Dar es Salaam, on the African mainland.

A group of children, led by a farmer boy named Jorma, find Hugo and attempt to hide him as best they can, building a garden to feed and take care of him. However, Hugo is discovered, and the garden is burned by the angry parents to prevent their children wasting their time with him and neglecting their schoolwork. As a result, Hugo is forced to scavenge from the local farms for food. When Aban-Khan, still obsessed about catching Hugo, hears of the incident, he travels to Dar es Salaam and with the aid of the Sultan's court wizard converts the farm of Jorma's family into an enchanted garden filled with gigantic fruits and vegetables. Once Hugo is lured into the trap, the plants turn into bizarre monsters thirsting to kill both Hugo and Jorma, who has come to Hugo's aid. Despite their best efforts to get away, they end up overwhelmed and captured by Aban-Khan.

Hugo is put on trial for the damage his nighttime raids caused. Fortunately, the children manage to contact the Sultan, who agrees to appear in court to speak for Hugo. The ruler makes a powerfully impassioned speech about how the hippos were mistreated both by their neglect and their uncalled-for culling, which removes all doubt that Hugo is the true injured party in this affair. As a result, while Aban-Khan comes to feel the wrath of a populace's mind turning against him, Hugo is released and the children are charged by the judge to care for him for the rest of his days.

Dr. Blumenthal finds out that she cannot conceive as her fallopian tubes are blocked due to a case of TB, which she feels is extremely rare in current times. She tries to conceive through a modern technique called in vitro fertilization from a very well known fertility clinic, but after four unsuccessful cycles she and her husband start to have differing opinions about continuing their quest for child. This starts to take a toll on their relationship, as Marissa is adamant to go on for the next cycle and her husband thinks that it would be another $10,000 down the drain. Marissa joins a counseling group for such ''in vitro'' couples, and meets up with her medical school friend Wendy, who also shares that same medical condition as her. Soon the two women discover that the specific condition is found in numerous women being treated in the clinic where they are getting treated. A suicide (suggested to be a murder) of fellow woman patient in the clinic also add to their curiosity. They break into the clinic and try to read their medical records, which are kept in a highly confidential status in the clinic.

They find out that a pathologist, Dr. Tristan Williams, from a clinic with similar name in Australia, has written a paper about a condition similar to theirs. On the spur of moment, they decide to go to Australia to visit the author. When they inquire about him at the facility, they get negative responses and are made to believe that they have made a wasted trip. When Wendy is killed in an unexpected accident involving shark, Marissa feel that her death is more than an unfortunate accident. After few fruitless efforts to find Dr. Williams, Marissa meets him in his current assignment. From him she learns about a practice where pairs of Chinese citizens who were smuggled into Australia work in the clinic regularly . Tristan tells Marissa that due to the paper he wrote, the FCA has taken retaliatory steps against him, like branding him with drugs and killing his wife two years ago. He has had to be constantly on the run, which made him send his only son to live with his in-laws to keep him safe. Marissa and Tristan team up together to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Tristan suggests that there had to be a drug trafficking involved since the illegal Chinese workers were transported from the Republic of China and moved into Australia through Hong Kong. They decide to visit Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, as they try to get information on how they are able to transport people from China to Hong Kong, there are two more attempts to kill them. Both the attempts fail. During one attempt, Marissa's husband, who comes to Hong Kong to take Marissa back home, is killed by mistake. Finally, they get to meet one such pair who is to be transported from China to Hong Kong in a boat for the FCA. Marissa discovers that one of the pair was a martial arts expert, and his sole duty was to protect the other. The other person was a rural doctor from China. Marissa and Tristan question the pair about the drug business, but all their answers are negative. Soon, Marissa, Tristan and the Chinese doctor get stranded due to border patrol force.

Marissa discovers that the rural doctors are trained to sterilize women as mitigation by the government to control the population. This sterilization is a simple remedy that can be done without making the patient unconscious. This comes as a shocking revelation, and helps Marissa put together all the things she has gone through. She finds out that the clinic is sterilizing its women patients who are coming in for regular check up. They also fail their initial ''in vitro'' cycles by making the fertilization medium more acidic. After 5 or 6 cycles, they let the couple have children. After this discovery, the CDC and FBI get involved to close up these clinics and take legal action. In the end, Marissa marries Tristan and the couple plan to adopt a Chinese baby from Hong Kong.

Category:1991 American novels Category:Novels by Robin Cook Category:Medical novels Category:Sterilization in fiction

An abnormal increase in the number of drug overdose cases makes Laurie seriously suspicious, and she starts investigating these cases. The going is, however, not as smooth for Laurie as the Chief Medical Examiner Harold Bingham is adamant that no further investigation needs to be done on these cases because of heavy political pressure related to the death of a young banker who is also the son of a Senatorial candidate. Laurie is asked to write off his death as a normal one even though his is a clear case of drug overdose. Though, Laurie reluctantly agrees to this, she cannot stop herself from researching all these drug overdose cases and finding some common features. She discovers that all these cases are related to young, rich and successful people: the kind that normally would not be associated with such drug overdose cases.

At the same time, Lieutenant Lou Soldano is investigating what is behind a series of gangland-style murders. Lou meets Laurie who is doing autopsy for one of these cases. While they are involved only professionally, Lou is immediately smitten by Laurie's charm.

Meanwhile, Laurie's parents want her to marry Dr. Jordan Scheffield, a rich, self-contained ophthalmologist.

There is a separate track that involves Paul Cerino's hit men Angelo and Tony roaming around the city and killing people according to a "supply-demand" list that is given to them by Cerino.

Despite their mutual misunderstandings and many other hurdles Laurie and Lou manage to crack down the case successfully. Their findings reveal a shocking organ trade related to the corneal surgeries that were done at the Manhattan General Hospital.

Sangeetha and her two sisters live with their cruel aunt, who runs a small hotel. Abbulu joins their hotel as an employee. He later tells Sangeetha that he is their brother, Vasu, who ran away in childhood. He solves all their problems and falls in love with Srikakulam Chittamma. Veera Raghava Reddy is an amputee Rayalaseema don who is seeking revenge on Abbulu. When his sons fail, he sends his daughter Anjali to destroy him. In the process, she reveals that Abbulu is Samarasimha Reddy and that he had killed Vasu. To prove his love for Vasu's sisters, Anjali challenges him to drink poison and Abbulu/Vasu/Samarasimha lands in a hospital. Satyanarayana, a police superintendent, reveals Samarasimha's true story.

Veera Raghava Reddy had killed Samarasimha's parents, his fiancée (Sanghavi), sister, and brother-in-law. Seeking revenge, Samarsimha severed Veera's legs and right arm, in the process Samarasimha kills two of Veera's four sons. In the fight Samarasimha Reddy accidentally killed Vasu. Samarasimha then assumed Vasu's duties as a brother. Learning this, Anjali repents for her actions. Samarasimha Reddy accepts the collective decision to marry Anjali to end the feud between the two families. After the marriage, Veera goes back on his word and tries to kill his daughter Anjali and Samarasimha, but fails. Anjali is admitted to the hospital where she recovers. Seeing everyone, including his sons, supporting Samarasimha Reddy, Veera Raghava Reddy commits suicide.

''The Lion in Winter'' is set during Christmas 1183, at King Henry II's (Peter O'Toole) château and primary residence in Chinon, Touraine, in the medieval Angevin Empire. Henry wants his youngest son, the future King John, to inherit his throne, while his estranged and imprisoned wife, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), temporarily released from prison for the holidays, favors their eldest surviving son, the future King Richard I (Anthony Hopkins). Meanwhile, King Philip II of France (Timothy Dalton), the son and successor of Louis VII of France, Eleanor's ex-husband, has given his half-sister Alais (Jane Merrow), who is currently Henry's mistress, to the future heir, and demands either a wedding or the return of her dowry.

As a ruse, Henry agrees to give Alais to Richard and make him heir-apparent. He makes a deal with Eleanor for her freedom in return for Aquitaine, to be given to John and Richard marrying Alais. When the deal is revealed at the wedding, Richard refuses to go through with the ceremony. After Richard leaves, Eleanor masochistically asks Henry to kiss Alais in front of her, and then looks on in horror as they perform a mock marriage ceremony. Having believed Henry's intentions, John, at the direction of middle brother, Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, plots with Philip to make war on England. Henry and Philip meet to discuss terms, but Henry soon learns that Philip has been plotting with John and Geoffrey, and that he and Richard were once lovers.

Henry dismisses all three sons as unsuitable and locks them in a wine cellar, telling Alais, "the royal boys are aging with the royal port." He makes plans to travel to Rome for an annulment, so that he can have new sons with Alais, but she says he will never be able to release his sons from prison or they will be a threat to his future children. Henry sees that she is right and condemns them to death, but cannot bring himself to kill them, instead letting them escape. He and Eleanor go back to hoping for the future, with Eleanor returning on the barge to prison, laughing it off with Henry before she leaves.

The film begins with the raising of a stage curtain. Dr. Jekyll vows his undying love for Alice, a vicar's daughter, in her spacious garden. Suddenly, seized by his addiction to the chemical formula, Jekyll begins to convulse and distort himself into the evil Mr. Hyde. He savagely attacks Alice, and when her father tries to intervene, Mr. Hyde takes great delight in slaughtering him. While in his lawyer's office, Dr. Jekyll sees visions of himself being executed for his crime.

Hyde later visits a friend Dr. Lanyon to ask him to procure some chemicals he needs, and after drinking the potion, he transforms back into Jekyll right before the doctor's eyes. Later in his lab, Jekyll transforms back into Mr. Hyde again, but haunted by visions of the gallows, he takes a fatal dose of poison, killing both of his identities simultaneously. In true theatrical tradition, the curtain then closes.

In the year 1183, King Henry II of England has invited his three sons, his estranged wife, and the new King of France to join him at his Christmas court at Chinon Castle. His eldest son Henry has died and now the King must decide upon a new heir. King Henry favours his youngest John. Queen Eleanor, who has been imprisoned the past ten years for staging a revolt against her husband, favours the oldest son Richard.

The book relates the tale of Charlotte Temple, who is enticed by a dashing soldier, John Montraville, to run away with him, but after they cross to America, he abandons her. It belongs to the seduction novel genre popular in early American literature.

The novel opens upon an unexpected encounter between the British Lieutenant Montraville and Charlotte Temple, a tall, elegant girl of 15. Montraville sets his mind on seducing Charlotte and succeeds with the help of his libertine friend Belcour and Mademoiselle La Rue, a teacher at the boarding school Charlotte attends. Mademoiselle La Rue had herself eloped from a convent with a young officer and "possessed too much of the spirit of intrigue to remain long without adventures." Montraville soon loses interest in the young girl and, being led by Belcour to believe in Charlotte's infidelity towards him, trusts Belcour to take care of Charlotte and the child she expects.

Following the advice of her new-found friend and neighbor Mrs. Beauchamp, Charlotte writes home to her mother. Her parents decide to receive her, her father even goes to New York to come get her. Without any financial support - Belcour does not give her the money Montraville put into his hands for her - Charlotte has to leave her house and, having walked to New York on a snowy winter's day, asks the former Mademoiselle La Rue, now Mrs. Crayton, for help. But the now wealthy woman pretends not to even know her for fear of her husband discovering the role she played in the girl's downfall. Charlotte is taken in by Mrs. Crayton's servant and soon gives birth to a child, Lucy. The doctor, however, has little hope of her recovering and asks a benevolent woman, Mrs. Beauchamp, for help. Mrs. Beauchamp is shocked when she recognizes Charlotte Temple in "the poor sufferer". The following day, Charlotte seems "tolerably composed" and Mrs. Beauchamp begins "to hope she might recover, and, spite of her former errors, become an useful and respectable member of society", but the doctor tells her that nature is only "making her last effort" Just as Charlotte is lying on her deathbed, her father arrives and Charlotte asks him to take care of her child.

Upon returning to New York, Montraville goes in search of Belcour and Charlotte. Learning of her death and burial from a passing soldier, Montraville is filled with remorse for his part in her downfall, and angrily seeks out Belcour, killing him in a fight. Montraville suffers from melancholy for the rest of his life. Mr. Temple takes Charlotte's child back to England. The novel ends with the death of Mrs. Crayton (the former La Rue), who is discovered by Mr. Temple in a London doorway, separated from her husband, living in poverty, and repentant for her involvement in Charlotte's downfall. Mr. Temple admits her to a hospital, where she dies, "a striking example that vice, however prosperous in the beginning, in the end leads only to misery and shame."

The author would eventually write a sequel, telling the story of the daughter born to the unfortunate Charlotte, Lucy Temple. Still unpublished at the time of her 1824 death, it would first go to press in 1828 as ''Charlotte's Daughter, or, The Three Orphans'', but later editions would simply bear the daughter's name as title, ''Lucy Temple''.

"News from the Front" is set in April 1915. Hazel receives a telegram, something which everyone dreads as it usually brings bad news. However, it merely says that James is coming home from the Western Front on leave following the Second Battle of Ypres. On his first night home, he has dinner with Richard, Hazel, Sir Geoffrey Dillon and General Nesfield. During the evening, he talks about the incompetent running of the war, saying the Army is "being squandered by a lot of amateurs who don't know their job". Sir Geoffrey, who is the lawyer for newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe, wants to use James' comments to bring down Asquith's Liberal Government, and days later a report of James' account is published in ''The Daily Mail'', which is owned by Lord Northcliffe. While the account does not name James, his commanding officer, Colonel Buchanan, soon works out it can only have been him, and he is transferred, against his wishes, to the post of General Staff Officer, miles behind the front line. James is furious with the decision, but there is nothing he can do to stop it.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Edward, now Private Barnes, comes back to Eaton Place for the weekend after training on Salisbury Plain. He proposes to Daisy while in a picture palace, and she says yes. The night before he goes back to camp, they make love for the first time, after both admitting they are still virgins.

A woman experiences frightening visions after being admitted to an insane asylum, where one of the inmates claims to be Drakula. She has trouble determining whether the inmate's visions are real or merely nightmares.

The show concerns the exploits of Anna, a young music student, who is forced to take care of Mr. Schmidt, a senile old man with magical powers, when her mother, Mr. Schmidt's former caretaker, falls ill.

Oskar is a stray dog who Mr. Schmidt adopts. At first, the pair fail to connect, but eventually Oskar is able to know exactly what his master is talking about, as viewed by speech bubbles which appear above the dog's head.

As the show progresses, Anna becomes more absorbed in Mr. Schmidt's crazy world. The running joke is that Anna must keep returning to Mr. Schmidt's house to retrieve a plate, which she never actually does.

In 1965 Los Angeles, Lucy Cullins and her mother go to see a Santa Claus at a shopping mall, who happens to be the real one. Santa is nearing the end of his 200-year reign as St. Nick, and needs to find a replacement.

His search involves his hat and an elf assistant named Ralph (Taylor Negron). Nick puts the hat on every kid. If the hat glows, it means that person has the real Christmas spirit. When Lucy sits on his lap, he puts the hat on her and it glows brightly, proving she would make a perfect Santa Claus replacement. Unfortunately, after leaving the mall, Lucy receives news that her father had been killed, devastating her.

In 2001, Lucy forgotten about the Christmas spirit due to losing her father, and focuses more on her job than her family. Meanwhile, it is Nick's last Christmas as Santa, and he must find Lucy again. He locates her where she works as a network executive for the "Shop-A-Lot" Channel.

Lucy's boss (Brian Stokes Mitchell) wants a big sales boost for the holiday. He comes up with the idea of hiring someone dressed as Santa Claus to advertise Christmas memorabilia. Lucy holds many auditions with no luck. After nearly giving up hope, she sees Nick, who is jolly and obviously loves the season. Lucy hires him.

In Nick's first few days at work, calls come in big numbers and the network sells more Christmas stuff than any other shopping network. After congratulations and a salary raise, Nick couldn't be happier. He walks around the once-unpleasant community and begins to see the Christmas spirit for which he long hoped.

After a few days on the job, Nick cultures a close friendship with Lucy. He begins to tell her about his reign and his choosing her as a successor. He says if he doesn't find a successor, a giant flood will engulf the world, adding that that was the reason for the Noah's Ark story. Lucy finds it ridiculous and tries to stay away from him.

One night, Nick goes to her house and tells her truthfully about his search. He tells her to close her eyes. When she opens them, she finds herself with Nick at the North Pole. Unbelievably still unconvinced, Lucy demands Nick send her home. Nick does so, and she wakes up thinking the North Pole had been a dream. She sees Nick on the couch and starts to tell him about the dream. Nick interrupts her to tell her it wasn't, and begs her again to put on the Santa hat and become Santa Claus. She still says no.

Nick makes his final broadcast on Christmas Eve. In his closing statement, he says to never give up on Christmas spirit, and wishes everyone good luck. Lucy ponders why he says "good luck." After receiving a big thanks from the staff, Nick begins to head back to the North Pole without a successor and preparing for the flood with the elves. Before he leaves Los Angeles, he leaves the hat on Lucy's dresser, with a note that says it's never too late.

When Lucy gets a ride back home from her boss, she starts to believe what Nick said about Christmas, and her role as Santa. Realizing her boss just wants money and could own Christmas, Lucy tells him to pull over, saying that no one owns Christmas. At home, she sees Nick has gone. She finds the hat and the note. Curious, she puts the hat on and it glows brightly. She realizes that she really is Santa.

Back at the North Pole, they're preparing for the worst. Suddenly, one of the elves sees through a snow globe Lucy celebrating that she's Santa. Once Ralph hears about it, he and Nick go to pick up Lucy. Lucy runs out of her apartment and finds Ralph and Santa in the cab. She goes inside and transforms into Santa. Once she has her Santa suit, Nick doesn't have his. For the first couple of houses, Nick helps Lucy go down the chimney and deliver the toys. Before they continue, Lucy tells Ralph to stop the sled and go to a church, where her niece is performing in the choir. When she arrives, she catches her niece's solo, and congratulates her, her brother, and her mom. Seeing her Santa suit, they seem puzzled. Suddenly, it starts to snow in LA. With surprised faces, people run outside, and see the sleigh. Lucy's family begins to realize she is Santa. After Lucy says goodbye to everyone and her family, she, Nick and Ralph go up and away into the Christmas night.

The novel is about a murder that occurs on a reality television programme called ''House Arrest'', which is very similar to the program Big Brother, and the efforts of three police officers to identify the killer by watching all the video recordings of the ten housemates while the remaining housemates continue the reality television show. The novel jumps back and forth in time to show the events in the live video recordings, leading up to the night of the murder, where the remaining eight housemates at the time had to remain in an Indian sweat box—an old-style sauna with a pitch-black interior, the intention being to prompt the housemates to have sex. The victim left the box to go to the toilet and the killer apparently left the box wrapped in a sheet to conceal his or her identity and stabbed the victim twice in the neck and head.

Later, a note is found in an envelope that had been sealed weeks previously that says that the victim will be dead by the time the housemates read the note and that one of the three remaining housemates will be murdered. The police have to catch the killer before he or she strikes again.

The killer is revealed on the final night of the show to be the show's producer, who had set up the murder to attract increased ratings for the show, faking the video footage of the killer leaving the sweat-box with the aid of her deputy producer; Detective Coleridge, an amateur actor, provokes a confession by creating fake video evidence of the producer's rehearsal murders.

An aircraft carrying 24 American military school cadet boys returning home crash lands into the sea near a remote, uninhabited, jungle island in the Pacific Ocean. The pilot of the plane Captain Benson (Michael Greene), the only adult survivor, is seriously injured and delirious. All of the survivors arrive on the island. During the night, Simon, the most independent cadet, finds a river and notifies the other boys, which they all drink from and explore the island afterwards. Meanwhile, on the beach, an overweight cadet nicknamed "Piggy" (whose real name is never revealed during the story), finds a conch seashell and takes it to the grouped cadets, who adopt it to signal the right to speak and be heard by the group. The senior cadet, Cadet Colonel Ralph, organizes a meeting to discuss surviving their predicament. Ralph and another of the older boys, Jack, emerge dominant, and an impromptu election is held to determine an official leader for the group. Ralph is declared the winner. They start a fire using Piggy's glasses to try and alert any passing craft. Things go smoothly for a while, but tensions soon begin to grow between Ralph and Jack.

One night, as they sleep, the delusional Captain Benson wanders away from the boys and into the jungle, eventually making his way to a cave deep inland. Jack brings all of his hunters to hunt in the jungle, leaving no one watching the fire. The fire goes out, preventing a passing helicopter from noticing them. Ralph blames Jack for failing to keep it going. During the ensuing fight, Jack, tired of listening to Ralph and Piggy, leaves and forms his own camp, taking many of the boys with him. As more and more boys defect to Jack's side, one of the younger boys, Larry, finds Captain Benson in the cave, mistakes him for a monster and stabs him, and then tells the other boys. Jack and his second-in-command Roger (Gary Rule) then go to the cave's entrance and mistake Captain Benson's dying groans for the sounds of a monster.

One night, Jack and his savages steal a knife from Ralph so they can make more spears, but accidentally trample on Piggy's glasses in the process, breaking one lens. Expecting to be rescued, Ralph's civilized leadership establishes a permanent signal-fire to alert passing ships of their presence on the island. Not expecting or wanting to be rescued, Jack's savage leadership adapts to circumstance; he establishes his camp as spear-bearing hunters who provide meat for both camps. They kill a wild pig and leave its head as an offering to the "monster" that they believe is in the cave. Eventually, identical twins Sam and Eric (Andrew Taft and Edward Taft), two of Ralph's friends, leave him to join Jack's tribe, leaving Ralph with only Piggy and Simon left.

Meanwhile, Simon finds the pig's head on the stick. He then uses a glow stick to explore the cave and discovers the corpse of Capt. Benson. Simon realizes the boys mistook Capt. Benson for a monster and runs to the beach in an attempt to alert them of his discovery, but his waving of the glow stick frightens the other boys, who mistake him for the monster and stab him to death with their spears. The following morning, Ralph blames himself and Piggy for not stopping the hunters from killing Simon. Afterwards, Jack tells his gang that the "monster" can come in any different form.

After Piggy's glasses are stolen by Jack's savages that night so they could make fire, Piggy and Ralph travel to Jack's camp at Castle Rock, attempting to call a meeting using the conch. Piggy insists that everyone be sensible and work together, but Jack's savages refuse to listen. As Piggy speaks, Roger pushes a boulder off a cliff which falls on Piggy's head, killing him instantly. Ralph swears revenge on Jack. With his hunters, Jack drives Ralph away by throwing rocks at him. Later that night, Ralph secretly returns to Castle Rock to visit Sam and Eric, who warn him that the hunters will chase after Ralph on Jack's orders.

The following morning, Jack and his hunters begin setting the jungle on fire to force Ralph out of hiding and kill him. Just barely dodging the spreading fire and Jack's hunters, Ralph makes a desperate run to the sea. He falls onto the beach, where he encounters a United States Marine Corps officer pilot who has just landed on the island with other Marines after having seen the fire that engulfed much of the island. As a horrified Jack and his hunters watch in stunned silence, they reflect upon their savage behavior while Ralph breaks into tears.

The book's omniscient point of view, Littlest One, affectionately called Littlest, is out on a dark night. She and her mentor, Fastidious, stealthily sneak into a woman and her dog's home and collect memories. At their home, the Heap, Fastidious complains about her curious student to Most Ancient. Thin Elderly and Fastidious decide that Thin Elderly will become Littlest's mentor, while Fastidious is assigned to a modern house.

Littlest is part of a small sub-colony of dream-givers. Through touching, they gather fragments such as colors, words, sounds, and scents. They then combine the fragments to become dreams, and give the dreams to humans, and sometimes pets. The giving of dreams is called the ''bestowal''.

The next night, Thin Elderly and Littlest go back to the woman's house. On the way, Thin Elderly explains to be gentle in the touching, and not to ''delve'', on the grounds that a dream-giver who picks up menacing fragments of the memory's "underside" becomes a ''Sinisteed'', a horse like creature, which are transformed dream-givers who inflict nightmares. Thin Elderly gladly discovers that Littlest has the "gossamer touch"; the ability to gather and bestow with great subtlety.

The woman reveals that she is to take an angry 8-year-old boy named John into her household and must learn to deal with the troubles in his life.

A young dream-giver named Strapping is introduced. His home, assigned as a mild punishment, is a dilapidated room at the woman's home. He displays his anger by acting contemptuous of his surrounding. The caretaker, for her part, displays only kindness.

At the dream-givers' Heap, Most Ancient reports that the Sinisteeds are gathering, intent on a particular victim.

That night, Littlest and Thin Elderly experience a Sinisteed at work. It inflicts John with a nightmare. He cries out in his sleep, whereupon the woman calms him by reminding him of a happy moment in his past. Littlest and Thin Elderly then gather comforting fragments to help strengthen him after the nightmare.

That night, Littlest decides she must touch the dog, seeking to derive fragments from him. Thin Elderly protests, as they are advised not to touch living creatures, but allows her to do so. Littlest notices how tender John is to a pink seashell, to Toby, and to a chrysalis he had found, in which is growing a butterfly. She gathers fragments from Toby, and bestows them as part of a dream.

The young woman, Strapping's assignment, begins working in a school. She reflects on how bad her old life was for her son, John, because of her abusive husband, Duane. She now has hope of making friends, which Duane had not allowed her to do.

Thin Elderly is proud of Littlest's bestowal, because John is happy in his dreams. Littlest explains that the fragments she collected had a bit of a story in each one, which she put together in her mind.

Strapping is satisfied with his work. Strapping discovers he has a liking and a hope for the woman. Accordingly, he gives her dreams of hope and of a better future with her son.

John tells a story to the old woman about a young boy who ate dog food, having been ordered to do so by his father, who had seen the boy run naked through the house and urinate on the floor. The father had accused the son of behaving like a dog, and so given him dog food for all his meals. The woman realizes that John is telling a story about himself, explaining his past abuse and his own harsh behavior.

That night, Littlest and Thin Elderly discover that a Horde of Sinisteeds intend to inflict nightmares on John and his caretaker. The two dream-givers respond by bestowing strengthening dreams. They are nearly killed in the stampede of the Horde, but are able to counteract the nightmares and strengthen the humans. This is the story's climax.

John enters school, and has become a much happier child. Littlest's dreams and the old woman's care have helped him begin to heal.

Littlest is commended for her work. She learns that she is to be reassigned, a possibility not hitherto considered. She wishes to remain assigned to John, whom she has come to love and cherish, but is told by Thin Elderly that dream-givers are not permitted to generate human emotions. That is when Thin Elderly tells Littlest One that they are imaginary (within the people, dreams, and the stories). Littlest One's experiences with the boy have helped her grow more mature, and as a result she is given the name Gossamer and given a new dream-giver, New Littlest, to train.

At the start of the novel, Sophie finds herself dumped by her current boyfriend Lou, then immediately falls into a new relationship with Dylan, a boy considered the height of masculine beauty by her friends. As they date, Sophie discovers she does not really love or even like Dylan all that much and ends their relationship in favor of not actually liking his personality. She then forms a secret romance with an internet chat-room boy named Chaz.

Before she meets Chaz in person, Sophie discovers he is a pervert and ends the relationship quickly. Now on her own, in real life, she encounters an outcast classmate, Robin Murphy, at the local art museum and is astonished to realize that while he is not physically attractive or liked by her friends, she falls in love with him. The book ends with Sophie choosing to sit with Robin in the cafeteria instead of her friends, knowing that revealing her secret relationship to her friends and classmates would be okay.

The companion book ''What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know'', written from the perspective of Sophie's boyfriend Robin (Murphy), was published in 2007.

When attractive but untalented Madame Honori confesses to her sinister singing teacher Svengali that she has left her husband, yet refuses to accept Svengali's offer of money, he fixes her with an intense stare that drives her screaming from the room. A short time later, her body is found in the Seine. Untouched by her death, Svengali and his flatmate Gecko visit the studio of English artists the Laird, Taffy and Billee in search of a meal. On leaving, they meet a lovely young milkmaid and artist's model, Trilby O'Ferrall. Svengali is enchanted by her, but she falls in love with the handsome, young Billee. One day, under the pretext of curing her headache, Svengali hypnotizes her and thereafter is able to control her by the power of his thoughts. When Billee discovers Trilby posing nude for a group of artists, they quarrel, and Svengali convinces her to fake a suicide and leave Paris with him. Five years later, as "Madame Svengali" the singer, she has become the toast of Europe with the help of his powers. Her old friends attend her Paris debut and they are astonished to see the woman whom they thought was dead. Determined to win her back from Svengali, Billee unfailingly attends all of her performances. His powers weakened by the strength of her attachment to Billee, Svengali must keep canceling performances until, finally, her schedule is reduced to an engagement in an Egyptian cabaret. When Svengali suffers an "attack," his powers over Trilby fail; she falters and sings horribly off key. As he dies from the attack, he begs to be granted Trilby's love in death as he never was in life. As if in response, she then dies in Billee's arms.

The action is set in the Qing dynasty of 19th century China. Retiring swordsman Li decides to give his jade sword, 'The Green Destiny' to a nobleman. The sword is stolen soon after. Li goes forth to retrieve it, assisted by his friend Yu Shu Lien. The nobleman's daughter, Jen, keeps encountering both characters.

When a schoolteacher gets fired from his teaching job (at the same time, Antti joins as a new teacher) he projects his bad mood at his troubled teenage son Niko (Jasper Pääkkönen) and evicts Niko from his apartment. On New Year's Eve, high on drugs, Niko forges a 500 euro banknote at his friend Tuomas' other friend's party and buys a CD player from a pawnshop since his father has sold the old one to get money for alcohol. Seeing a counterfeit 500-euro banknote, the shop owner gets furious and beats the woman Niko had paid with the counterfeit money. When, Isto Virtanen sells his widescreen TV to the same store, the shop owner offers 510 euros and puts in the counterfeit note. When Isto pays with the counterfeit 500 euro note at a restaurant, he gets arrested. When Isto gets out of, he finds out that his car has ended up being vandalized.

Isto breaks into Matikainen's car dealership, whose alarm devices are out of order, so he gets on his travels with a stolen car. Matikainen puts a bad feeling around and takes his car away from the traveling vacuum cleaner dealer Teuvo Hurskanen, because the installments are late. Teuvo talks about it in the AA club. In the evening, he happens to end up in the same motel with Isto. The well-behaved Isto starts mocking Teuvo at the bar because he doesn’t drink alcohol. Teuvo eventually gives up and starts drinking. Together, they bring a woman to Isto’s room. Isto and the woman end up in bed and Teuvo is repulsed. Teuvo loses his self-control and knocks them both to death with his vacuum cleaner. Teuvo regrets his act in the morning and tries to commit suicide by suffocating but give up. Later, police officer Hannele arrives at the motel and finds the bodies in Isto's room. In the same night of Tuomas' friend's party, Tuomas and Niko break into the Certum company. Niko notices cops, but because of radio connection problem, he fails to get in touch with Tuomas. He quickly escapes the scene. Thomas gets chased by the cops. He escapes to the rail yard, where police officer Hannele chases him, but crashes onto the track and the train runs over her, causing her death. Thomas is sentenced to eight years in prison for murder. When Thomas's sentence ends, Niko, now a teacher, receives him and gives him a 500 euro banknote and says that it's real. Tuomas returns home to Elina after his release and sees his son only once. The next day, Tuomas visits Hannele's husband, Antti. Thomas tries to convince him that he did not commit the homicide. Tuomas and Antti go to the lake where Antti shoots Tuomas. The film ended with its opening scene, Tuomas' funeral, where Niko speaks.

A man (the stroller) is walking along a beach and finds a chocolate éclair, ponders over it for a bit then decides to eat it, then suddenly is yanked into the sea by a hook and line.

Book 1

Sana Maulit Muli is about two young lovers who discover how true love can overpower fate and destiny.

Small-town girl Jasmin Sta. Maria (Kim Chiu) and Travis Johnson (Gerald Anderson), the illegitimate son of an American soldier, meet as stowaways in a ship sailing from Cebu. They promise to write each other as they were separated; this promise is intercepted as soon as Camille Soriano (Erich Gonzales) deceives Travis by writing to him as Jasmin. In time, Travis' father dies and their family leaves for the Philippines only to meet up with Camille and consequently Jasmin.

A rocky start between Jasmin and Travis, when Jasmin was assigned to tutor him after a school brawl, turns into friendship then real love. Jasmin learns later on of Camille's deception and soon after learns that Camille is her younger sister.

To make amends with her sister, Jasmin gives away everything for Camille's happiness leading to the break-up. Due to the taunting of Travis' brother Brandon (Jake Cuenca), a twist ensues as Jasmin dies by a bus accident.

Book 2

Given a chance to change destiny by the mysterious Mang Andres (Michael de Mesa), Travis leaps back in time to be with the person that he loves.

George (Tonton Gutierrez) and Clara (Glydel Mercado) are revealed to be Camille's adoptive parents, and Jasmin's mother Emily (Mickey Ferriols) is Camille’s biological mother. Camille was diagnosed with heart disease as a baby. Due to desperation as she could not afford treatment for her daughter at the time, Emily gives up Camille for George and Clara to raise after the loss of their own child. Later on, George lets Emily and Jasmin live at his home as house help, with Emily in particular being Camille’s nanny, under the exception that they do not tell Camille or Clara the truth.

Bianca (Neri Naig) is Clara’s sister. She is a photographer from Boston who moves back after breaking up with her boyfriend. Brandon is falling head over heels for Bianca and she does as well, after all his visits to her photo shop. Finally, Bianca gives in, and accepts that she loves Brandon, sleeping in his condo for the night which results in her getting pregnant.

Travis attempts to let Jasmin love him but the fact that Jasmin does not know about their love hinders him. Despite Mang Andres’ request to Travis of not to reveal what he knows about the past, he stubbornly continues to try to change everything. Every time Travis reveals something from the past, it ultimately causes a ripple in time. For one, he confronts Camille about her lie on being Poknat. Camille insists that she is indeed the real Poknat by singing Poknat and Bokbok's song and showing Travis the heart of the friendship, the sandal (which in Book 1 Camille did not have). Thus, instead of trying to gain Jasmin's love again, Travis could ultimately be changing the fabric of time for the worse; for example, Clara dies in a fire because of Travis. Jasmin realizes because of her life that Travis is saving, other people are dying in exchange for her life. But earlier, because Travis saved at the bet, Jasmin and Travis won't be disturbed by him and they can finally be together again. As the time comes closer, Travis tries to save Jasmin's life but is mistaken to have mental problems since his paranoia for Jasmin's safety is becoming worse. He's then confined in a hospital.

As the night of Jasmin's death comes, Travis goes through different escapades to escape the hospital, to save her. Finally getting to see each other, Jasmin, still afraid but willing to die, promises to fight for her life. As the moment arrives, an out-of-control truck hits Jasmin and Travis, which left Jasmin safe and Travis in critical condition. Fully shocked by what had happened, Jasmin makes a deal with Mang Andres to keep Travis alive, in exchange for her life. But all plans fail when Travis pursues to die to save Jasmin from dying again. Just in time Jasmin is saved by her parents. Opposite from Book 1, everyone mourns Travis' death, except for Jasmine, because she believes in her heart that Travis and she will be together again. Before going back to the United States, Travis' mother, Monica, leaves all of his belongings to Jasmin, as she knows Travis would've wanted her to have them. Jasmin sees the watch that brought Travis back in time. Jasmin goes back in time, during her happiest times with Travis and far away from danger.

With that happening, Mang Andres finally decides to let Jasmin and Travis be, leaving all of them happy and alive. In conclusion, Brandon and Bianca are a happy couple, married and in love, with a new baby son. Jasmin goes to law school and Travis becomes a doctor. She soon graduates and becomes a successful lawyer. Camille becomes a happy teacher. Jasmin and Travis soon marry and are happily together.

''Rogue Trader'' tells the true story of Nick Leeson, a young employee of Barings Bank who after a successful spell working for the firm's office in Indonesia is sent to Singapore as General Manager of the Trading Floor on the SIMEX exchange. The movie follows Leeson's rise as he soon becomes one of Barings' key traders. However, everything isn't as it appears – through the 88888 error account, Nick is hiding huge losses as he gambles away Barings' money with little more than the bat of an eyelid from the powers-that-be back in London.

Eventually the losses mount up to well over £800 million and Nick, along with his wife Lisa, decide to leave Singapore and escape to Malaysia. Nick doesn't realise the severity of his losses until he reads in the newspaper that Barings has gone bankrupt. They then decide to return to London but Nick is arrested en route in Frankfurt. Nick is extradited to Singapore where he is sentenced to six and a half years in jail and is diagnosed with colon cancer. Because of this, he did not complete his sentence.

The series starts with Disraeli already a young man, trying to make connections in high society and eventually run for office several times, unsuccessfully. Much of his personal life is covered, and his more successful involvement with politics starts in the second episode, which ends with his being sworn in as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The rest of the series chronicles his rise to power, the death of his wife and his two terms as prime minister.

It is the early 60s and The Goodies are trying to make it big as pop stars. However, at every turn, their ideas are ripped off by acts who then go on to be much more successful than the Cricklewood trio – The Beatles, The Supremes and The Bachelors. Now in the mid-70s The Goodies are Despondent and living on Skid Row, they decide to get their own back by stealing the most famous characteristics of some of the most successful artists around - Elton John's glasses, the Bay City Rollers' trousers, Donny Osmond's teeth, etc.

They are so successful, the Top 10 is packed wall to wall with Goodies singles. The trio play Wembley Stadium, although to avoid crowd trouble, the audience is made up entirely of police. Having saved the pop business single-handedly, The Goodies are awarded OBEs at a spectacularly waterlogged royal garden party. To distract the nation from the appalling state of the economy, The Goodies are employed to cheer up the nation and they oblige with an irritating song and dance craze called "The Bounce".

With the nation in chaos, a General Election is called (featuring comedian Kenny Everett in a cameo as one of the candidates), but is won by a party advocating no enjoyment whatsoever, populated by shop window dummies. With entertainment now illegal, The Goodies become Robin Hood-style outlaws, travelling the nation giving impromptu variety shows and hanging out in "jokeeasies" where they plot to overthrow the government. However, it is not that easy – the entertainers have been banned for so long that they cannot remember their old routines. Finally, The Goodies manage to oust the dummies and the entertainers take power – but with their memories gone, Bill suggests another option – a puppet government.

Taking this literally, popular puppets Sooty and Sweep are now the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, and the Houses of Parliament are now full of screeching hand puppets. With their government at risk from these stuffed pretenders, The Goodies sneak into the Prime Minister's residence, Chequers, to remonstrate with the puppets. However they are immediately attacked and pursued by various giant versions of famous puppets from television in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They are threatened by a Andy Pandy, Teddy and Looby Loo; Tim eats up Ernie the Cookie Grouch (a hybrid mix of Ernie, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster from ''Sesame Street''); he and Graeme are challenged to a sword fight by Bill and Ben, the ''Flower Pot Men''; and Bill is roughly beaten up by The Wombles (a sly nod to the chart rivalry between The Goodies and Mike Batt's Wombles singles).

Having vanquished their foes, The Goodies relax...but charging up behind them is a Dougal, the dog from ''The Magic Roundabout''. As Graeme tries to ride the mighty "beast" and Tim is run over by the thing, Bill grapples with an enormous Zebedee, from the same programme. The trio guide Dougal and Zebedee back to the country house, where they comprehensively destroy the building and the puppet government.

Having hidden down a handy manhole, The Goodies return following this coup to their woodland retreat and look on as the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties agree to form a coalition government. All seems well until the camera pulls back and reveals that Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson and Jeremy Thorpe are actually puppets being worked by...The Goodies. They smirk knowingly.

However, the last laugh is on the trio - and we see Bill, Graeme and Tim being worked by strings held by director Jim Franklin.

Unlike earlier volumes, the comic book portions of ''Black Dossier'' are not set in the Victorian era; rather, they are set in 1958, after the fall of the Big Brother government from ''Nineteen Eighty Four'' (the explanation for this discrepancy is that Orwell's book was originally set in 1948, but the dates were changed by the publisher). The frame story sees Mina Harker and Allan Quatermain - now immortal after bathing in the fire of youth from ''She: A History of Adventure'' - on their quest to recover the ''Black Dossier'', which contains the secret history of the now-disbanded League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The book starts with Mina Murray (going by the name Odette O'quim) at a bar in London, where MI5 Agent James "Jimmy" Bond (grandson of Campion Bond) attempts to seduce her, taking her to the decaying remains of the "Ministry of Love", once one of Big Brother's government departments. Jimmy attempts to rape Mina but is subdued by a brick hidden in Mina's handbag. Allan quickly arrives and the two retrieve the Dossier. Harry Lime, the new M, teams Jimmy up with Emma Night and her uncle, an aged Hugo Drummond, to hunt down Mina and Allan, who are believed to be heading North.

Mina and Allan take a detour to Greyfriars School in Kent which houses The Thirty-Nine Steps and was attended by Harold Wharton, a.k.a. Big Brother. The caretaker, William, reveals that many British spies were groomed at the school and that Bob Cherry is Harry Lime. Mina and Allan agree to visit a spaceport on their detour - space-travel technology has flourished since the Martian invasion of ''Volume II''. At the spaceport, Jimmy, Emma and Hugo find Allan and Mina, who escape via a robot-piloted rocket that references Gerry Anderson's Fireball XL5.

The two escape the crashing rocket by parachute and land in the Scottish countryside to find a ruined castle they were heading for. Galley-Wag rescues them from Jimmy and escorts them into the castle. Hugo follows them inside, where Mina reveals that they are the same Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain who fought off Professor Moriarty and the Martians. They also reveal that Jimmy's career is mostly fabricated, that he is a double agent for the United States and that he killed John Night, Emma's father and Hugo's brother. Hugo lets them leave and tries to kill Jimmy for his actions, but he is shot by Bond at point-blank range.

Mina and Allan successfully return to the mysterious, utopian universe of The Blazing World, where they are reunited with their mutual lover Orlando and have safely hidden the dossier.

''The Black Dossier''

As Murray and Quatermain read the dossier, the contents of the dossier interrupt the narrative in different sections. Stories include: * "On the Descent of the Gods" an account of the Gods of the League universe, as written by Oliver Haddo; * a twenty-five page ''Life of Orlando'' comic strip which tells the entire life of Orlando from his birth in the City of Thebes in 1260 B.C., up to the Second World War told in the style the 1950s British comic ''Trump''.; * a faux William Shakespeare play detailing the foundation of the League by Prospero from ''The Tempest''; * an imaginary sequel to John Cleland's ''Fanny Hill'' with full-page illustrations akin to those that Marquis Von Bayros illustrated for the book; * a Bertie Wooster and Jeeves prose story involving one of Great Old Ones from the stories of H.P. Lovecraft; * and "The Crazy Wide Forever," a short story written in the style of Jack Kerouac.

Other features include: * a picture map of the Blazing World and its location, * a cut-away of Nemo's Nautilus Mark II submarine, * a series of postcards Mina and Allan sent between the years 1899 and 1913, * and profiles of the second twentieth century leagues and the group's French and German counterparts.

Like in many other Kabuki plays, the characters and locations changed their names several times across the centuries. The modern version of the drama centers around the figure of Kamakura Gongorō Kagemasa, who has become the stereotypical bombastic hero of the kabuki stage, with red-and-white striped makeup and strong, energetic movement; the historical Kamakura Kagemasa is famous for his bravery for having continued to fight after losing an eye in battle in the Gosannen War (1083–1087).

The story is set in front of the Tsuruoka Hachimangu shrine, where an evil aristocrat (his exact identity changed across the centuries, and in the modern version is the Heian era warlord Kiyohara no Takehira) has usurped power and taken as prisoners several imperial royals, including the prince Kamo Yoshitsuna and the princess Katsura. One of Takehira's associates, Lady Teruha, tries to persuade him to not execute the prisoners in front of the shrine, else he will enrage the gods.

In response the evil lord summons, in addition to the four red-faced warriors he already has on his side, an even more powerful and fearless warrior called Narita Gorō. He and the four other warriors perform a ''Haradashi'', a dance used to show to both public and the royal prisoners how powerful they are (in a similar fashion to the Haka). Kiyohara orders them to kill the royal family.

As they are about to draw their swords to cut their heads in the climactic moment, a tremendous shout "Shibaraku!" (Just a moment!) can be heard loudly from behind a curtain (''agemaku''). The hero appears and steps out onto the ''hanamichi'' (a raised platform extending through the audience to the stage) in magnificent costume (featuring the ''Sanshō'', the three squares symbol of the Naritaya, Ichikawa Danjūrō's acting family) and red striped makeup. Arriving at the stage, he sits on a stool (''aibiki'') and, in a special kind of monologue called ''tsurane'', explains his story. He announces that he is capable of superhuman strength, and demonstrates this by being able to drive off some of Kiyohara's henchmen only by shouting at them with his eyes.

He then walks onto the stage. He accuses the villain of power usurpation and, only by words and without using his strength, he persuades him to return his stolen items, the imperial sword ''Tomokirimaru'' and the imperial seal. Lady Teruha, who is revealed to be a relative of Gongorō, returns both to the prince. Showing the illegitimacy of the evil lord's actions he manages, again only with words, to allow the royal family and their retainers to escape with Teruha.

Gorō orders to Takehira's soldiers to strike a final attack at him. Surrounded, Gongorō draws his giant sword and cuts their heads with a single strike and then performs a stunning Mie pose in an intentionally exaggerated scene which shows his superhuman strength. Takehira is definitively defeated and, as the hero leaves the stage and walks through the hanamichi, he can be seen alongside his five warriors raising his hands in sign of mutual respect for such an incredible warrior.

Now, with the curtain fallen, Gongorō performs a ''roppō'' ("flying in six directions", a technique which calls the actor to leave the hanamichi by exaggerating his movements), and leaves the stage, not as the Warrior, but as the actor.

The play involves only two nameless characters, designated "White" (originally played by Austin Pendleton) and "Black" (originally played by Freeman Coffey), their respective skin colors. Offstage, just before the play begins, Black saves White from throwing himself in front of a train. The title, ''The Sunset Limited'', is derived from the name of a passenger train that travels from New Orleans to Los Angeles. All of the action takes place in Black's sparse apartment, where the characters go (at the behest of Black) after their encounter on the platform. Black is an ex-convict and an evangelical Christian. White is an atheist and a professor. They debate the meaning of human suffering, the existence of God, and the propriety of White's attempted suicide.

''Blade of Heaven'' begins with a young boy by the name of Soma who had been accused by the King of the Heaven for supposedly stealing his sword. Heavenly beings along with Demons have been fighting for many generations for ultimate supremacy. Before all of this began however, there was a certain period of time commonly referred to as the "Great Battle of Heaven" before human beings supposedly had existed. This was a battle between the demon realm and the heavenly warriors to see who would be fighting to rule the land. Within this ancient battle, there were three legendary swords that anyone would have sacrificed their own life to attain; One of which being the Sword of Kwangma. This vicious sword had been known to have left many levels of blood in its ruthless wake, and particularly chose those of high status as its master. The second sword is the Sword of the Guardian Spirits, in which can contain the four elements of the world within itself. The Guardian Spirit sword can use these elements to its bidding within any moments of need. The last of the three swords, which was known as the Blade of Heaven was clearly the greatest of the three. When at one time in which the demons had the upper hand, the wielder of this sword suddenly had appeared and destroyed all of them without getting hurt. The previous renowned wielder of this sword became referred to as King Pachun (who unknown to Soma is his father). The princess of heaven, and the General Winter join him on an adventure to retrieve this Blade of Heaven. Although it is revealed that Soma is the one who stole the sword, the blade later chose him as its new owner. The ending of the 10th volume says and the world will never know.

Asagi was born with a mysterious power that gives him the ability to slay demons, by channeling it through a sword. As this generally breaks every sword he uses, Asagi begins searching for a legendary sword known as the "Moegi". Along the way he meet a young girl named Kaede and the spirit of her father Kurenai, who join him on their journey. After he obtains Moegi, the group switches its focus to searching for Kurenai's body, which Asagi can rejoin him to using Moegi. They are also joined by Suoh, a famous spear wielder, his companion Rinrin, a woman of wolf origins named Aoi.

A S.T.A.R. Labs expedition uncovers an ancient derelict spacecraft in the jungles of Central America. Superman investigates the ship and is afflicted by an alien virus causing his powers to fluctuate wildly. The group is captured by a band of mercenaries working for a clandestine scientist. He plans to use the alien technology to facilitate selective global genocide based on genetic sequencing, but he didn't count on one thing - the meanest alien hunter in the galaxy! The Predator senses Superman is a worthy opponent and begins stalking him while concurrently seeking to reclaim the stolen technology appropriated by the scientist. It's a race against time for Superman to save countless millions of lives.

Carnegie Mellon English Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a widowed parent of an alienated college son, James (Ashton Holmes), overachieving high school daughter, Vanessa (Elliot Page), and sibling to an adopted ne'er-do-well brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) who he cannot evade enough. He is bitter, arrogant, self-absorbed, and uninterested in his students. This becomes a problem when he parks illegally on campus. The car is impounded and he does not pay the fine before getting to the college impound lot, watched by a disgruntled former student. Lawrence has a trauma-induced seizure after falling from the top of a fence after retrieving his briefcase from inside the impounded car.

In the emergency room, he is treated by Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), a former student he does not remember. Lawrence has to get about without being able to operate his car. His brother Chuck is without a place to sleep and a job, so Vanessa sets it up for what he characterizes as a "win/win" situation.

At a follow-up appointment, another doctor tells Lawrence that Janet had been his student. He sees Janet again outside the hospital as he is leaving, and, since Chuck has failed to show up, she offers to take him home. When they arrive, he asks Janet to later meet for coffee and she agrees, fulfilling her old student crush on the professor. Vanessa confronts Janet, warning her about Lawrence's fragility. At dinner, Lawrence monopolizes the conversation and Janet walks out.

Lawrence fakes a visit to the emergency room to see Janet again and they reconcile for a second date. They get back to Janet's place where they have sex, but while spending the night, Janet is turned off by Lawrence's neediness and worries that he is, in fact, still too distraught by his wife's death. To get rid of him, she feigns being called in to work and does not return any of his subsequent calls. On another night, in the midst of a contentious family Christmas dinner at the Wetherholds', Janet arrives unannounced with a cake.

After Chuck gets Vanessa drunk to celebrate her early acceptance into Stanford University, she makes a pass at him, which he rejects. He then moves in part-time with Lawrence's son, James, in his college dormitory.

James' girlfriend, Missy (Camille Mana), who is one of his father's students, tells Lawrence that James has had a poem accepted by ''The New Yorker''. In contrast, Lawrence's latest book has been universally rejected. A new title, ''You Can't Read!'' (Vanessa's idea) helps sell the book to Penguin Group, a largely non-academic publisher. To Lawrence's dismay, however, the book is largely re-worked and edited by the publisher, only vaguely resembling his original work. Janet accompanies Lawrence on a trip to New York to meet with the publisher, where she learns she is pregnant with their child. Finding him preoccupied by his book's publishing and an ongoing campaign to become chairman of the English Department, Janet is again upset by Lawrence's self-absorption and breaks up with him without telling him the news.

Back in Pittsburgh, Lawrence is confronted by both James and Chuck, who both point to his apparent lack of interest in his children's lives. Encouraged by Chuck, Lawrence goes to the hospital to reconcile with Janet, who reveals her pregnancy. He has meanwhile dropped his bid to become department head and has become a more involved parent and professor.

During the end credits, Lawrence and Janet cradle twin babies: a boy named Sonny and a girl named Cher.

A long, boring summer—that's what Anastasia has to look forward to when her best friend goes off to camp. She's thrilled when old Mrs. Bellingham answers her ad for a job as a Lady's Companion. Anastasia is sure her troubles are over—she'll be busy and earn money.

But she doesn't expect to have to polish silver and serve at Mrs. Bellingham's granddaughter's birthday party as a maid! As if that isn't bad enough, she accidentally drops a piece of silverware down the garbage disposal and must use her earnings to pay for it! Is the summer destined to be a disaster?

Feeling in desperate need of psychotherapy, seventh-grader Anastasia buys a plaster bust of Sigmund Freud at a garage sale and consults him as her life takes a series of twists and turns. Freud remains enigmatic and unjudgmental as Anastasia's science project goes hopelessly awry and even her usually unflappable mother, Katherine Krupnik, loses her cool.

Anastasia's mother, who is a children's book illustrator, finds out that she is being flown to California to act as a consultant for a film being made from a book that she illustrated. At first, Anastasia thinks that being in charge of the house in her mother's absence will be a snap, particularly when she and her father make up an easy to follow, super-organized housekeeping list. Unexpected events, however, keep shaking up Anastasia's domestic bliss. First, her younger brother Sam gets the chicken pox, and Anastasia has to stay home from school to take care of him. Then her boyfriend, Steve, asks her out on their first real date—but she finds out she can't go out with him because she has to stay home to chaperone a meeting between her father and Annie, one of his ex-girlfriends. Anastasia wants to plan a romantic dinner for herself and Steve, but worries that the romantic setting will affect her father and Annie. Numerous disasters—small and large—strike, but luckily Anastasia won't be on her own for long, as her mother is able to come home early and straighten things out again. Her mother's arrival brought her peace and happiness.

Just when her three best friends vow to give up boys, Anastasia Krupnik begins a secret correspondence with her ideal man, carefully selected from the personals column in her father's magazine. "SWM, 28, boyish charm, inherited wealth, looking for tall young woman, nonsmoker, to share Caribbean vacations, reruns of Casablanca, and romance." Sure, Anastasia is only thirteen, but a difference in age is a small obstacle when two people are on the same wavelength. And she, a tall, young movie buff who hates smoking, is certain that SWM (a.k.a. single white male) is on her wavelength. Heaven knows, she is definitely ready for romance.

When she actually receives a reply from her SWM, it is the start of another hilarious and ever original episode in the eventful life of our heroine extraordinaire, the outspoken, irresistible Anastasia Krupnik.

The fleet encounters two Cylon Raiders in pursuit of a third. Starbuck and Kat take out the two pursuing Raiders and engage the third when a panicked male voice comes over the comm identifying himself as Lt. Daniel "Bulldog" Novacek and pleads to call off the attack. Admiral Adama allows the Raider to land on the ''Galactica'' and a disheveled man emerges from the cockpit. Adama welcomes the man aboard apparently knowing who he is. Novacek is checked over by Doctor Cottle who confirms he is not a Cylon and in good physical health.

Novacek is then debriefed by Adama who is curious to know how he escaped the Cylons. Novacek explains that he was held prisoner for the past three years and found an opportunity for escape when the Cylons showed signs of sickness. Adama believes it was the effect of the virus they found killing the Cylons earlier, to which Novacek says he was apparently immune.

President Roslin asks for more details on Novacek's situation. Adama informs her that Novacek was a pilot for a black op mission when Adama was in command of the Battlestar ''Valkyrie''. Adama was sent to deal with colonists from the colony of Tauron, who were violating the Cylon Peace Treaty by prospecting for tylium ore on a moon that was too close to the Armistice Line. Novacek was on a recon mission but the Cylons shot him down, and Adama states he didn't know that Novacek had survived.

Elsewhere, the Cylon Number Three is wandering the corridors of ''Galactica'' dodging security personnel. Once it becomes apparent they are after her, she runs away, coming upon a door she cannot open which reads "End of Line". She turns to the human soldiers, telling them to shoot her. They do, but she quickly awakens from the "dream", back aboard a Cylon Basestar and in bed after an apparent ménage à trois with Gaius Baltar and Number Six.

Back at the fleet, Adama goes to Colonel Tigh's quarters to tell him about the reappearance of Novacek. Tigh is baffled as to how the man had survived his recon mission and wonders what Adama plans to do about it, since Novacek's return could cause a problem if the "truth" were found out.

Later, Adama meets with his son Lee to discuss Novacek. Adama tells Lee the truth about the mission to Tauron. Adama was in fact ordered by the Colonial Fleet Admiralty (directly by Admiral Peter Corman) to conduct surveillance on the Cylons. They hoped to send a stealth ship across the Armistice Line to learn about the Cylons' military capabilities and intentions. During the mission, unidentified Cylon ships disabled Novacek's Stealthstar fighter. Lee is shocked to learn that some in the Colonial Forces' upper echelons suspected that the Cylons were using the Armistice to rebuild their forces, and that an attack on the Colonies was inevitable. Adama then chokes up, stating the worst part of the mission was his own decision to shoot down Novacek to prevent him from being captured. He feared that if the Cylons captured him, they would retaliate knowing the humans violated the Armistice first by spying on them.

Simultaneously, Novacek visits Tigh. Believing Novacek already knew what really happened, Tigh reminisces about the fateful mission, revealing the harrowing truth about Adama's decision.

Adama continues with the story, lamenting that the failed mission probably instigated the Cylon attack. Despite protests from Lee, Adama believes that he is responsible for the destruction of the Twelve Colonies.

Back on the Basestar, Number Three's dreams grow increasingly worse and she seeks release. She orders a Centurion to kill her, overriding its directives and telling it to delete the incident from its memory afterwards. The Centurion promptly shoots her in the head and she is resurrected. After awakening from her "death", she tells another Three that during her download, she saw "something so beautiful between life and death", apparently getting a rush from the effect to temporarily escape her mental torment.

Back aboard ''Galactica'', Starbuck analyzes the gun camera footage of the Cylon Raider chase of Novacek and finds something curious. She brings hard copies of the images to Tigh and informs him that the Raiders had every opportunity to shoot Novacek down, but it looks like they were purposely missing. She is also skeptical about Novacek not only escaping the Cylons, but how he managed to find the fleet as well. Tigh becomes concerned and goes to inform Adama.

Adama is in his quarters when he gets an urgent call from Novacek asking to talk to him. Adama quickly heads down and enters Novacek's quarters, where Novacek strikes him in the stomach with a metal pipe. Adama stoops over and Novacek hits him in the face, sending Adama crashing into a table. Novacek ties Adama up and begins choking him, furiously blaming his former commander for sending him on a mission to be captured and tortured by the Cylons for the past three years.

Tigh comes to Adama's rescue, pointing a gun to Novacek's head. Novacek goes for the gun, but Tigh fights him off with the metal pipe. Tigh defends the Admiral's decision to shoot Novacek down, telling him "We're all soldiers, Danny; we're all expendable." Tigh tells Novacek that he was duped by the Cylons. They purposely let him go and drove him toward the fleet, somehow knowing that once he learned the truth, he would try to kill Adama. Novacek finally comes to his senses and realises he was just doing the Cylons' dirty work for them.

A while later, Adama goes to ''Colonial One'' and hands his resignation to Roslin, saying he has to face up to what he has done and no longer deserves his command. Roslin refuses his resignation; in fact, she was just about to award him a medal of distinction for his 45 years of military service. Adama says he doesn't deserve it, but she admits the medal is not for "him" but for "them", the men and women under his command, who need a hero. When Adama laments his role in destroying the human race, Roslin responds by saying that the matter was both anybody's and everybody's fault. She also suggests he may have been manipulated by the admiralty to provoke a war. His penance in the Novacek matter will be to accept the medal, like it or not, and continue his job.

Adama accepts his medal. After the ceremony, he sees Novacek off as he departs for another ship in the fleet to attempt to rebuild his life as a civilian. Before he departs, Adama hands Novacek his Fleet uniform, reminding him "once a pilot, always a pilot," and the two salute each other one final time. Adama is then later paid a visit in his quarters by Colonel Tigh, who is uncertain why he went there in the first place. When Tigh rebuffs Adama's plea for him to return to his duties as the ''Galactica'''s XO, Adama then asks him if he is ready to talk about what happened to Ellen. Tigh says he needs a drink to which Adama replies, "Me too." The two sit down to talk.

''Fatal Cure'' tells the story of two young doctors Angela and David Wilson, with their 9-year-old daughter who suffers from a chronic disease, cystic fibrosis, who are lured to a small town in Vermont to start a career. David gets a job as an internist with the local HMO, while Angela gets an offer from the local hospital as a pathologist. The story takes aim at managed care and health maintenance organizations.

David and Angela quickly find out that their idyllic town harbors dark secrets. Patients at the local hospital keep dying prematurely. The hospital grounds are terrorized by a rapist, and the young family is shocked to find a dead body in their basement. Angela is faced with sexual harassment and David soon experiences the wrath of the HMO administrators for spending too much time with his patients and ordering too many tests and hospital stays.

David and Angela end up not just getting fired from their jobs -and deeply in debt, but their lives are threatened as well. The novel ends with a dénouement somewhat similar to ''Silence of the Lambs''.

Category:1993 American novels Category:Novels by Robin Cook Category:Medical novels Category:Novels set in Vermont

After a Space Shuttle crashes on Earth, a fungus-like alien lifeform is discovered on the remaining parts scattered widely over the United States. Once people are infected by the organism, and REM sleep occurs, the organism takes control. One of the first people infected is Tucker Kaufman, a CDC director investigating the crash.

Tucker's ex-wife, psychiatrist Carol Bennell, begins to feel something is amiss when people seem to have "changed". Her patient, Wendy Lenk (played by Veronica Cartwright, who appeared in the 1978 film version as Nancy Bellicec), describes how her husband "is not (her) husband", and one of Carol's son's friends acts detached and emotionless.

At a neighborhood Halloween party, Carol's son Oliver finds an unusual patch of "skin" on a partier, which is initially believed to be costume makeup. Carol speculates that the skin may be connected to reports of a fast-spreading flu. Carol takes the sample to her doctor friend Ben Driscoll to have it analyzed. Carol and Oliver later witness a car accident where a troubled woman is killed. Carol approaches the crash scene to give a witness statement, but an emotionless cop takes down her plates and orders her back to her car. Afterwards, Carol drops Oliver off at Tucker's house for the weekend.

Later, that night, Ben and Carol attend a friendly dinner meeting between Russian diplomat Yorish and Czech diplomat Belicec (along with his wife Luddie). Carol and Yorish debate the violent nature of humans over caviar and champagne. Meanwhile, Tucker uses the CDC to spread the disease further, disguising the spores as flu vaccine and Carol, upon returning home, is attacked by a "census department" worker who tries to break into her house.

Ben and Dr. Stephen Galeano, a biologist, discover how the spore takes over the brain during REM sleep. During this investigation, Luddie calls Ben, worried about Yorish's behavior. Driscoll and Galeano also find that people who had brain-affecting illnesses, such as encephalitis or ADEM, are immune to the spore because their previous illnesses prevent the spore from "latching on" to the brain matter. Oliver is immune to the spore because of the ADEM he had as a young child. Carol decides to get her son, who might show a way to a cure, back from Tucker. Before she drives to Tucker's house, she joins Ben's team who is called to the house of the Belicecs, the Czech ambassador and his wife, in a case of emergency. There they witness the transformation of Yorish (the Russian ambassador) and the Belicecs' friend.

When Carol arrives at Tucker's house, he and several colleagues close in on her. He explains that the changed humans, devoid of irrational emotions, are offering a better world, and asks her to join them. When Carol resists, Tucker holds her to the ground and infects her by spurting his saliva on her. She escapes and returns to Ben at the Belicecs' house. They flee when Belicec returns with more transformed people intent on infecting anyone in the house.

Galeano and one of his assistants head to Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, where they and other scientists will attempt to find a cure for the virus. Carol and Ben separate to find Oliver, who texts his location, the apartment of Tucker's mother, to Carol. Carol goes there and manages to spirit Oliver away, but is again pursued by Tucker, whom she has to kill to stop.

Carol arranges to meet up with Ben, but it takes a while for him to show, and Carol almost falls asleep, but Oliver saves her. Ben arrives, but Carol finds he too has 'converted'. He attempts to seduce her to give in to the new society that has no crime, war, or violence, but also frankly states that there is no room for people like Oliver who are immune. Carol shoots Ben in the leg and flees with Oliver. They are pursued, but finally she and Oliver are picked up by helicopter, and flown to the medical center. A vaccine is created, inoculations are made world-wide, and within a year the alien virus is eliminated. Carol and Ben reunite, Ben having no memory of the events, and society reverts to its normal emotional and violent ways.

Archie is a documentary filmmaker who works alongside his best friend and cinematographer Charlie on films such as ''Aluminum, Our Shiny Friend''. He still lives at home with his mother, who is frustrated at Archie's single minded focus on filmmaking, as she would rather he go out and meet a nice woman.

The two friends are given the chance to create their passion project, a musical on Indian farming techniques if they complete a film for an executive, who will allow them to use the same cast and crew. When they arrive on set they discover that the film is actually a porno with a terrible script set during World War II. The two decide to continue on and improve the script, which they turn into a musical exploitation film. Various issues pop up on and off set, which includes an eccentric actor named Wolf and threats to the film executive from an extreme religious organization.

Archie's mother sets him up on a blind date with Mona Lisa, who is delighted to learn that he is a director. Swayed by her looks and enthusiasm, Mona Lisa is added to the cast but is given no adult scenes. This frustrates Wolf, who tries to incorporate sex scenes from the original script, only to be rebuffed by Mona Lisa. Just as filming is going well, the leader of the religious organization, Rev. Farrell, arrives on set with several of his followers with the intention to set everything on fire. He stops when he sees Mona Lisa, who is revealed to be his daughter. This all proves to be too much for Archie, who storms off the set. Archie ultimately changes his mind and decides to complete both films. He also learns that Rev. Farrell made pornography himself and was responsible for writing the original script, which Archie uses as blackmail.

Ultimately Archie completes both films and achieves professional success. The film then cuts to a scene of Archie waking up, as he had been sleeping on his typewriter. He then continues to write, after which the scenes of professional success continue, leaving it up to the viewer to determine whether the events really happened or was only a script he was writing.

The atheistic Dr. Henry Jekyll (Lewis) embarks on a series of experiments determined to segregate the two sides of the human personality, good and evil, to disprove God's existence. His experiments cause his fiancée Bernice to call off their engagement, and in a rage, he manages to unleash the darkest part of his personality as Mr. Hyde. As the first transformation into Hyde begins, Jekyll's butler exclaims that Jekyll is now "the Apostle from Hell!" Hyde, complete with fangs and scraggy hair, skulks through the city, committing such heinous acts as stealing a woman's purse and killing people. The police eventually catch up with Hyde, interrogate him, put him in jail, and strap him into the electric chair. Sitting in his chair at home, Jekyll awakes violently from his nightmare to declare, "I believe in God! I have a soul..." and decides not to create the chemical potion and to embrace religion instead.

Corn!

'''Corn!''' is set in the style of the musicals of Rodgers & Hammerstein, featuring parodies of and references to ''Oklahoma!'', ''Carousel'', ''The Sound of Music'', ''The King and I'', ''Cinderella'', ''Flower Drum Song'' and ''South Pacific''. In Kansas in August, Jitter threatens that June will have to marry him if she can't pay the rent; Big Willy is torn between his desire to marry her himself and his desire for the freedom of his carnival-barker lifestyle, and Mother Abby advises her to "follow her dream", leading to a lengthy dream ballet and a happy ending.

A Little Complex

'''A Little Complex''' is based upon the musicals of Stephen Sondheim (''Into the Woods'', ''Company'', ''Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'', ''A Little Night Music'' and ''Sunday in the Park with George'', et al.). In a New York apartment complex full of neurotics, Jitter is a mad artist/landlord who plots to murder his tenants, including bird-obsessed, indecisive Jeune, deep-thinking composer Billy and pessimistic alcoholic Abby, for throwing his artwork out with the trash. After many overly-complex lyrics and dissonant music, he does.

Dear Abby

'''Dear Abby''' parodies the work of Jerry Herman, especially ''Mame'', ''Hello, Dolly!'', ''La Cage aux Folles'' and ''Dear World''. Aunt Abby is an unconventional Manhattan socialite, adored by her neighbors, and her advice solves everyone's problems. In between costume changes, Abby manages to matchmake her nephew William and her geeky friend Juney-Fae and convince the stuffy Landlord Mr. Jitters to embrace his true self and become a drag queen. Much dancing follows.

Aspects of Junita

'''Aspects of Junita''' plays upon the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber, including ''The Phantom of the Opera'', ''Evita'', ''Jesus Christ Superstar'', ''Sunset Boulevard'', ''Cats'', ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' and ''Starlight Express''. In this sung-through pop opera, Junita hopes that becoming a superstar, despite her lack of talent, will allow her to get out of paying her rent from the mysterious Sir Phantom Jitter. As her boyfriend Bill bemoans the lack of communication in their relationship (due to the fact that they literally cannot talk), and fading diva Abigail von Starr advises her to go over the top, Junita falls under Phantom Jitter's spell, only for an errant Chandelier to bring things literally crashing down to a spectacular climax.

Speakeasy

'''Speakeasy''' reflects the work of John Kander and Fred Ebb, chiefly ''Chicago'', ''Cabaret'', ''Kiss of the Spider Woman'' and ''Liza with a Z''. In a speakeasy in 1930s Chicago, where half the characters are German, Fräulein Abby advises Juny to turn to prostitution to pay her rent; her boyfriend, Villy, is both gay and in jail, and is of no help; and the activity is presided over by the creepy emcee/landlord Jütter. All sing about how depressing life is and dance around in skimpy clothing.

After the end of "Speakeasy", the cast concludes the show by singing "Done", a parody of the song "One" from the musical ''A Chorus Line''.

Dr. Henry Jekyll (King Baggot) sends a note to his fiancée, Alice (Jane Gail), and her father (Matt B. Snyder) to say that instead of accompanying them to the opera, he must give more time to his charity patients. At Jekyll’s practice, his friends Dr. Lanyon (Howard Crampton) and Utterson (William Sorrel), a lawyer, ridicule him for what they consider his dangerous research. Alice and her father also visit Jekyll’s rooms, but although apologetic, the doctor insists on devoting his time to his patients. That night, however, Jekyll undertakes a dangerous experiment, swallowing a drug intended to releases his evil self. His body convulses, and he transforms into a hunched, twisted figure.

The strange creature emerges from Jekyll’s room, bearing a note in Jekyll’s handwriting that orders the household staff to treat the stranger – “Mr Hyde” – as himself. Hyde then slips out into the night, terrorizing the patrons of a nearby tavern before finding himself lodgings. From these rooms, he begins a career of evil, until one night he attacks and injures a crippled child. Outraged witnesses corner Hyde and force him to agree to compensate the boy. Hyde reluctantly leads one man back to Jekyll’s house and gives him money. During this passage of events, a worried Dr. Utterson sees Hyde entering Jekyll’s house. Inside, Hyde takes a potion that transforms him back to Jekyll. The doctor swears that he will abandon his experiments and never tempt fate again; but that night, without taking the drug, he turns spontaneously into Hyde.

''The Touch'' tells the story of a Chinese family of martial artists and acrobats who have been performing for many generations. The family are, in secret, guardians of a holy treasure accessible only by a spectacular jump which, to everyone else, is impossible to perform.

One of the family members (the main character's brother) and his girlfriend are kidnapped by a ruthless treasure hunter (Roxburgh) to procure the priceless relic for him. Yeoh's character Pak Yin, with the help of Eric (Chaplin), her master thief ex-boyfriend, pursues them into an ancient desert where legends say the treasure is buried in order to uncover and protect the treasure that her ancestors had sworn to keep safe. The action culminates in a climactic sequence set in the booby trapped subterranean Buddhist temple.

Agnes Hurley (Davis) is a disillusioned housewife, married to Bronx cab driver Tom Hurley (Borgnine). She wants something better for her daughter, Jane (Reynolds). When Jane announces her engagement to Ralph Halloran (Taylor), Aggie sees this as an opportunity to have a romantic elaborate wedding, with caterers and all the trimmings, like she never had because they could never afford it. However, the daughter does not want it because it is causing awkward conflicts with her family and friends, and her father has been saving that money for many years to purchase a taxi medallion and become self-employed. The film deals with the ensuing money troubles and conflicts within the family, which also involve Uncle Jack Conlon (Fitzgerald) and most of the neighborhood. It is not until the end of the film that the mother realizes that it is the happiness of her family, rather than the expensive ceremony, that is most important, as they go off to watch their daughter get married at their church in the new taxi.

Sam Krupnik is a mischievous little boy, but mostly curious. He is very smart, and from the day he was born, Anastasia was jealous.

The story is told from Baby Sam's viewpoint and consists of his observations, feelings and thoughts, in the manner of the 1989 film ''Look Who's Talking''.

When Mrs. Krupnik announces that she only wants homemade gifts for her birthday, Sam's older sister Anastasia decides to write their mother a poem, while Sam opts to make a perfume. He begins collecting various things that his mother says she likes the smell of, storing them in a grape juice bottle. However, as Sam collects more and more ingredients for the perfume—such as his father's pipe, chicken soup, locks of freshly-washed hair, yeast, and baby wipes—he realizes that the "perfume" is smelling worse and worse. Despite this, Sam continues making the perfume, hoping it will start smelling better.

The film opens on Mars, showing the last moments of a Mars rover's mission. As the rover prepares to sample Martian rock, it sadly "''kicks the bucket''". The mission controllers congratulate themselves on a "''successful''" mission, while back on Mars the scene pans up from the dead rover to show a huge undiscovered Martian city. A spaceship is seen quickly rocketing from the city and accelerating into space.

News producer Tim O'Hara is fired for unwittingly "''compromising''" reporter Brace Channing, the daughter of his boss, Mr. Channing, during a live broadcast of the first Space Shuttle launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. His assistant, Lizzie tries to comfort him and she apparently has a crush on him.

Later that night, while driving, Tim witnesses a small Martian spacecraft crash landing. Realizing his chance to deliver a story that will "rock the Earth," he brings Brace to show her the ship, but by the time he reaches the crash site, the ship has been shrunk to toy size. Nearby, its only occupant hides in the bushes. Tim takes the now-shrunken spaceship home with him and the Martian follows him to retrieve it. After a confrontation, Tim is knocked out and the Martian disguises himself with a "''nerplex''", a piece of alien gum that can transform anyone into another life form, to look like Tim and ends up kissing Lizzie when she visits.

When Tim confronts the Martian the next morning, he finds out that a small device called an "electron accelerator," which powers the control systems of the ship, is damaged beyond repair and the Martian needs Tim's help to find a replacement. The Martian takes the name "Uncle Martin" and explores the city with Tim, unaware that they are being watched by SETI, which discovered DNA left by Martin while hiding out at Tim's. While exploring Tim's neighborhood, Martin tells him about a friend of his named "''Neenert''", one of his planet's most gifted Martian scientists, who came to Earth in 1964, but never came back. Brace is captured by the SETI gang and is interrogated.

Tim secretly tapes Martin and his sentient suit, Zoot, with hidden cameras to back up his story and impress the television station staff in hopes of getting his job back, but he eventually decides not to reveal the tapes, as he has become fond of Martin. Meanwhile, Martin and Zoot discover a subsystem of the ship called the Interstellar Safety System, which is prepared to self-destruct.

Brace discovers the footage of Martin in his Martian form and she steals the tape. Lizzie shows up at Tim's house to discover Brace stealing the tape. Thinking that Tim cheated on her, Lizzie rejects him and storms out, only to be distracted by the now-full-sized spaceship and is pulled into the cockpit by Zoot. Martin and Tim go after the Martian evidence, shrinking the ship (along with Zoot and Lizzie) and racing down to the station, where Tim admits to Martin that he has been videotaping him, but says he likes Martin and apologizes. Accepting Tim's apology, Martin subdues Brace, disguising himself as her so he can take her place on the news and Martin's alien form is almost exposed during the broadcast, which is carefully watched by Elliott Coleye, head of SETI.

As footage from another news report is aired, Tim and Martin escape the station, pursued by SETI through the sewers in Tim's car, shrunken using Martin's device. They eventually end up in the hands of Coleye, who takes them back to SETI for investigation. At the lab, Tim tricks one of the scientists into growing Martin's ship to normal size, breaching security, and allowing Lizzie and Zoot to escape. However, the trio's escape is blocked by two security guards, one of whom shoots and injures Zoot. With the help of a black spiked nerplex, Lizzie transforms into a hideous monster from "Veenox 7," kills the guards, spits out the nerplex and turns back into a human.

The three eventually succeed in locating Martin, who has undergone surgery involving the removal of his antennae and putting him in a deathlike comatose state. When Martin and Zoot reunite, he comes back to life and wakes up. They then escape SETI headquarters and Tim and Lizzie prepare to bid farewell to Martin, installing a car alternator in place of the ship's damaged electron accelerator. However, they are interrupted by Coleye, who attempts to stop him from escaping; declaring that he will stop at nothing to prove the existence of aliens, even if it means killing Martin in the process. A SETI official named Armitan, revealed to be Martin's old friend Neenert, saves Martin by destroying Coleye's gun and then tossing Coleye wildly in the air. After a reunion, Martin and Neenert fly back to Mars on their ship; much to Coleye's dismay.

By chance, Coleye catches hold of the piece of nerplex left behind by Neenert. Believing that he can still prove his cause, while ignoring warnings from Tim and Lizzie, Coleye chews on it and he is turned into an Martian. Laughing in excitement and delight, Coleye accidentally swallows the gum (presumably leaving his new form permanent). He ends up caught and tranquilized by his own organization, as Tim and Lizzie escape the scene.

In the end, Martin and Zoot decide to return to Earth and stay with Tim and Lizzie, while Neenert flies Martin's spacecraft back to Mars. Tim expresses initial reluctance to Martin's staying at first, but Lizzie convinces Tim to change his mind.

It's Future Job Day at Sam's nursery school, and Sam, who has zookeeping aspirations, is thrilled when his teacher says he can tell the other children about a series of zoo animals: "For six weeks he could stand in front of the circle and feel that feeling of being the most interesting person in the room."

As always, the patient and loving Krupnik family stands by as Anastasia's irrepressible little brother struggles with a set of almost impossible goals.

9 year old Nora is not a normal child, and she figures this out as a little kid. To disguise her intellect, Nora observes and emulates her classmates so she doesn't stand out. She becomes interested in one of her schoolfellow, Stephen, and they become friends. When their CMT (Connecticut Mastery Test) scores come out, Stephen's low scores persuade him that he is stupid as students start treating the scores as a competition reflecting their intelligence. To encourage Stephen and prove the CMT scores are not important, Nora deliberately gets a bad report card: all Ds except for a C in spelling.

Due to all the Ds that Nora gets, her parents contacts the school, and Nora starts to receive special attention. Soon, Nora reveals to Stephen that she is actually a genius and he comes up with a plan to prove grades don't reflect everything about a student. He intentionally tells the school's gossip, Jenny Ashton that Nora is a genius. As word spreads, Nora begins to act like a snob and challenges teachers by bringing up topics that have not been taught in class yet. When she is confronted by the principal, Ms. Hackney, the next day for scoring a zero on her last three tests, Nora explains that she loathes grades because they cause too much competition. She stays home the next day, pretending to be indisposed, but gives up her ploy when she discovers that Stephen has started a campaign for all students to rebel by scoring zeros on their next tests.

During an emergency school meeting, Stephen and Nora apologize on behalf of the involved students before the whole school. Nora expresses that she thinks grades cause too much competition, and that it causes the extra smart kids to be all snobbish and stuck-up, and the normal kids to think they're dumb. Mrs. Byrne supports Nora, saying that she did think grades were getting too much heed.

In the future, space has been colonized. As humanity expanded, the Marine Corps became the Space Force. Colonel Fraser (John Pyper-Ferguson), a former Marine officer who has become a pirate, has his pirates hijack a new synthetic explosive. Light and concealable, it is the perfect improvised explosive device. He takes hostages at a local colony to draw out an Earth negotiator (James Shigeta), who is escorted by a Marine fire team under the command of Captain 'Gray Wolf' Gray (Edward Albert). He then takes him hostage on his ship, as well as the Sergeant in charge of the security detail. After a short space chase, he arrives with demands for gold in exchange for the negotiator's life. Colonel Fraser is killed by a new recruit, who shoots him through his own torso, killing them both in the process.

The book opens with a prologue narrated by Hannay, describing how Hannay is approached by the American military attache in London to covertly solve the mystery of Blenkiron's disappearance in South America. Hannay seeks out his friend Sandy Arbuthnot for help, but Sandy soon disappears, sending Hannay a mysterious letter saying to lie low and keep quiet.

The action next moves to Olifa, where Archie and Janet Roylance are honeymooning. The Roylances are intrigued by two sets of people they meet: a party of boorish American tourists and the strange, half-sleepwalking copper miners from the city of Gran Seco, which is ruled by a powerful mining tycoon, Gobernador Castor. As Archie and Janet explore and befriend Castor, it becomes clear that the Americans are using their apparently innocent curiosity as a cover for spying on Castor, and that one of them may be Sandy in disguise.

Sandy meets Archie and Janet in secret and tells them they are in danger, but they insist on staying and helping him uncover Castor's plot. At the hacienda of Olifan Don Luis, Sandy explains what he and Blenkiron have uncovered: Castor enslaves Indians, pulls the strings of the government, controls his followers using a local drug, astura, and is a megalomaniac out to destroy democracy by causing civil war in America. Sandy and Don Luis plan to lead an Indian uprising that will not fight Castor but call him leader, embarrassing him.

Everyone agrees to help, and Archie and Janet use their friendship with Castor to kidnap him, while Sandy and Blenkiron begin the revolution by seizing the copper mines. Sandy has a close shave with death in which he discovers his old school pal Lariarty is one of Castor's addicted minions.

The second part of the story is set at the titular Courts of the Morning, the rebel's secret base in the north of Olifa. Here, Janet and Barbara Dasent, Blenkiron's niece, try to reform Castor into a decent human being. Meanwhile, Sandy and Don Luis engage in guerrilla warfare against the superior Olifa army. Castor's closest confidants, lost without their supply of the drug, make at attempt to rescue Castor but capture Janet instead, kidnapping her. This incident wins Castor entirely to the rebel cause, but a distraught Archie flies into the wild Indian territory to search for Janet, crashing his plane and wandering through the jungle. In the Indian country, Janet is held prisoner for seven days, finally escaping with the help of Archie and Don Luis.

In the concluding section, Don Luis reveals that he has been planning a general revolution for three years and the country is ready to rise. Castor, a man reborn, takes the command from Sandy. The Olifa army remains a threat until Sandy daringly blows up a mountain pass, cutting the huge army in two and allowing the rebels to take enough prisoners to force the government to surrender. At the moment of victory, however, the drug addicts make one final revenge attempt, killing Castor and Lariarty, although Janet and Barbara survive. Don Luis is elected the new president, and Sandy refuses a prestigious post in favour of returning home to Scotland and marrying Barbara.

This book is set in 1912. Turner Buckminster, a minister's son, has just moved from Boston, Massachusetts to Phippsburg, Maine and is constantly being scolded for simple misunderstandings, not to mention being automatically disliked by the boys of Phippsburg for being bad at baseball. Turner meets a black girl, Lizzie Bright Griffin, who becomes friends with him, despite his difficulty with social situations. Turner has to save Lizzie's family and friends before they all must leave, or worse, get put into an insane asylum in New Gloucester, Maine. But that means standing up to the authorities, including Turner's father.

Factory worker Joe Huggett has a first-time telephone installed at home, for work purposes, but his daughters quickly find a lot more use for it. Diana, a flighty cousin of Ethel's (played by a 16-year-old Diana Dors), arrives for a not-very-welcome visit and causes problems at home and at Joe's workplace when Ethel persuades Joe to get her a job there. Eldest daughter Jane must choose between her fiancé who has been away in the forces and a new local admirer. Meanwhile, the family is planning to go to London to see the royal wedding, and Grandma Huggett joins them in camping out overnight near Buckingham Palace.

Clark, who began her career as a child vocalist on BBC Radio, sings the song "Walking Backwards".

Gold miner (Vincent Price) and his granddaughter (Diana Ivarson) living in South Africa are besieged by a group of bank robbers, led by 'Stretch' Hawkins (Robert Gunner) for the prospectors' gold.

Five orphans – Victor, Amelia, Vanity, Colin, and Quentin (see Names and identities below) – who have spent their lives in a luxurious but strict and secretive British boarding school (Saint Dymphna's School and College for Destitute Children), begin to discover that they are different from the other children that they so rarely see.

Unlike the village children, the five orphans do not age. They can also manipulate their appearances. Throughout the book, they also come to discover that they possess unique paranormal abilities. Victor can control the molecular arrangement of matter. Amelia is a fourth-dimensional being. Vanity can find secret passageways. Colin is a psychic. Quentin is a warlock.

The five also discover that the patrons of the school along with their guardians and teachers are just as human as they themselves, which is to say not at all. The story largely concerns the main characters' investigations and discoveries about an otherworldly power struggle, and their place within it.

A villager (Vichare) brings his 8-year-old grandson Parshuraam (also known as Parshya) to a doctor in Pune to diagnose the child's eyes. They are accompanied by Parshya's maternal uncle Diwakar. On the first day Vichare is asked to sign the usual papers before admission in hospital. Upon asking, he learns that the papers say the doctor would not be responsible if anything goes wrong. Vichare, the rustic grandfather finds these terms unacceptable. A medical social worker, Aasawari, quickly comes in and explains the practice to Vichare. She calms him down and accompanies them during the first appointment with the doctor. Dr. Sane quickly diagnoses child as a victim of retinoblastoma — a rare retinal cancer. After consulting with other colleagues in US and UK doctor finds that only way to save child's life is to perform an operation that will leave the child blind. As per rule, doctor explains this and insists child be informed of this before surgery. He cannot be operated without this knowledge as it was against ethics. Aasawari (Amruta Subhash) who helps the doctor in convincing the grandfather and the grandson, tries to keep track of Vichare and persuades him not fall prey to other doctors promising false medicines. She tries to befriend Parshya to explain him what is going to happen. However, she finds it is too difficult to explain to him that he will turn blind.

The film then depicts the grandfather's struggle to accept the reality that the only way to save his grandson is at the cost of his eyesight. He tries to come to terms with the situation and his personal agony is shown in scenes, like taking second opinion, explaining his grandson the reality and his desire to show him everything possible before his grandson loses his eyesight. For some reason, the surgery has to be postponed by a day. That afternoon, grandfather and grandson disappear from the hospital ward and a frantic search follows. Confronted by an angry surgeon on their return, the grandfather states quite simply that he wanted to show Parshya the sights of the city for one last time.

''Shwaas'' has been applauded for scenes which depict the difficulty faced by the doctors to explain to grandfather and Parshya that nothing can be done and the truth is but inevitable. It shows the medical fraternity in a very positive light, with the doctors and nurses being extremely supportive and doing the best they can, and helping the villagers with the best facilities. The last shot where Parshya returns shwas home wearing dark glasses, waving to his family and friends from the boat was widely appreciated by film critics.

''Frostbite'' takes place in the remote wilderness of Alberta. The setting is similar to the real world, but where werewolves (and possibly other supernatural phenomena) are rare but known phenomena.

The novel opens with Cheyenne "Chey" Clarke parachuting into the wilds of Alberta, provisioned with extensive hiking supplies, most of which are immediately lost. Chey is soon attacked by a werewolf (it is indicated to the reader that the creature is obviously not a normal wolf), but survives with only a scratch, which is enough to curse her with lycanthropy.

In wandering the wilderness, she meets the enigmatic Dzo, who introduces her to Monty Powell, a werewolf (presumably the one who attacked Chey). After their meeting, it is revealed that Chey has secretly come looking for the werewolf, and is working with outside parties who want him removed.

After a failed attempt to kill Powell, Chey is left in the care of her backers, and used as bait to lure Powell while her own future at their hands remains questionable.

Master Warrant Officer Jenny Casey is a Canadian ex-soldier who has cybernetic replacements for an arm and an eye that she lost during combat. Jenny's former commander, who was responsible for replacing her limbs, contacts her to bring her into a secret government corporate project in which she is uniquely qualified to participate.

Daniela Monroy is a sweet girl who lives with her family made up of her parents Enrique and Leonor, her older sister Adela and her little brother Juancho. She has a journal where she writes all her wishes, secrets, illusions and dreams. Enrique is the owner of a theater, the main stage of the telenovela, where Daniela and her inseparable group of friends always get together. But the happiness of Daniela and her family is abruptly broken when her mother, the loving Leonor, drowns in an accident. From here on, misfortune will haunt the Monroy family, as Elena, a beautiful but unscrupulous woman, is sickly obsessed with obtaining Enrique's love and will seek by all means to be his legitimate wife.

At the same time, the story of another boy unfolds, Martín Linares, a handsome and intelligent boy with a broken family. His parents, Pepe and Rita, divorced and although Pepe, Enrique's best friend, adores his son, he cannot visit him as he wanted since Rita won custody of his son and remarried Gustavo, a violent man who abuses Martin.

Despite all the misfortunes, Daniela and Martín live an innocent childhood love and will fight so that life smiles at them as before.

On Ceres, Bartholomew Ramsey, captain of the CDSS ''Daniel Webster'', meets secretly by Vice Admiral Sergei Lermontov. Five years earlier, Ramsey's son and wife Barbara Jean disappeared in space on a passenger liner using a new Alderson point. Several ships were sent to investigate, but they too vanished. Recently, Grand Senator Grant, Barbara Jean's father, had disappeared. He was on a frigate, captained by his nephew, that used the point from which ships never returned. Lermontov needs to find Grant, whose political support could prevent severe cuts in the navy's budget.

However, no one knows why ships keep on disappearing. An illegal physicist named Marie Ward provides an explanation: a black hole. Due to restrictions, research on black holes have not been conducted, and few people are experts on the subject. Alderson jumps work by jumping to the closest star. If an undetected black hole were between two stars, a ship would arrive near the black hole instead. The missing ships could have been trapped by the black hole's gravity.

The ''Daniel Webster'', with Ward aboard, travels to the black hole and finds several of the missing ships. Many of the crews and passengers of the ships are alive, including the Grants and Ramsey's family. Barbara Jean married Commander James Harriman, who has led the survivors for five years.

Ward develops a theory that could allow the ''Daniel Webster'' and the survivors to jump out of the system. However, the plan requires a spaceship to go into the black hole. Harriman volunteers and successfully pilots one of the crippled ships into the black hole. The theory works, and the survivors escape to the nearest star.

Lucy finds that her adoptive father, a museum curator, has been attacked by Silas. Before dying, he gives clues that lead her to a "Golden Ticket" in a vending machine candy bar. During "comedic" situations, fellow orphans Edward, a disillusioned monk trainee; Susan, a displaced adopted girl; and Peter, a mutant at Mutant Academy who is often teased for his chicken-like wings, all find Golden Tickets. All four meet up at Willy's Chocolate Factory. Willy reveals his plot to use them all as a special ingredient in his treats.

Attempting to hide from the maniacal Willy, Lucy finds a wardrobe. On the other side, in the middle of a wintry forest, she finds Mr. Tumnus, who welcomes Lucy to Gnarnia and warns her of danger. The others follow Lucy to Gnarnia, and Edward meets the White Bitch. She convinces him to trap the other orphans in order to become the king of Gnarnia in her White Castle.

All four go to Tumnus' house, where they discover their relation to each other in a copy of the famous painting ''The Last Supper'', and that the White Bitch killed their parents. They ally themselves with Harry Beaver, Tumnus' life partner, to defeat the White Bitch.

Edward sneaks off to the White Bitch's castle. When he refuses to reveal to her where the others are, she flashes him her breasts, hypnotizing him into giving up the information on the orphans, then imprisons him. The White Bitch sends Silas after the trio; Tumnus apparently sacrifices himself to ensure their safety.

Afterwards, the orphans meet a graying Harry Potter, along with a balding Ron Weasley and a pregnant Hermione Granger at Hogwarts. They all help Lucy, Susan, and Peter train for the war against the White Bitch.

Captain Jack Swallows helps Edward escape, only for Edward to find out it was a ruse as Jack, the Bitch's old enemy, needs intelligence out of Edward.

Upon finishing their training, Lucy, Susan, and Peter head to the camp of Aslo. Aslo agrees to help Edward and manages to kill Silas, but while breaking Edward out, he is slain by the White Bitch. As the orphans have a pre-battle party with their allies, Susan gets drunk and vomits everywhere, disgusting their army enough that nobody shows up to help the orphans the next day. The four siblings engage the White Bitch in battle and are killed. Peter then finds a magic remote and uses its powers to revive his siblings.

Together, they kill the army, defeat the White Bitch, and stop her plan. Peter declares the White Bitch will receive a fair and just trial in the new Gnarnia, but Jack's wheel accidentally crushes her to death. The four are crowned the new rulers of the land. Tumnus then shows up, having survived his battle. Decades later, the four now-elderly rulers find the wardrobe again and go through it. They appear moments after they had left, young again. They meet Borat, who congratulates them on a happy ending, but then, Jack's wheel accidentally runs over the quartet, killing them. Borat then says his iconic "NOT!" before turning around and clapping his buttocks, ending the film.

Extended version

The unrated, longer version (released in the United Kingdom as the "Rude & Crude Unseen Version") of the film features some scenes not shown in the theatrical version. In an alternate ending, Willy Wonka, instead of Borat, comes in and says: "I told you it was going to be an epic adventure." Willy Wonka then goes in the wardrobe and puts out a "do not disturb" sign that refers to the girl in the wardrobe. The Oompa-Loompas come in and start singing the Willy Wonka theme song. The four are then crushed by the wheel. Also, during the scene where Lucy is crushed under the junk that falls out of the wardrobe, the girl who runs out is nude, as opposed to wearing a bikini. In the ''Snakes on a Plane'' scene, when the Samuel L. Jackson lookalike yells, he replaces "goddamn" with "motherfuckin'".

At the beginning of the episode, a message is sent to Robert Hawkins via his basement computer, saying "Traitor Identified. Make Contact ASAP". Hawkins is about to reply when his son calls him to teach him to play football.

Dale discovers Gracie Leigh's lifeless body in a pool of blood. Mitchell Cafferty arrives during the investigation, claiming that Jonah Prowse is the culprit, but Mayor Green is dubious. Gray Anderson heads a lynch mob and uses the town's anger for his own political gain. Jonah shows up at Emily's house, claiming he was stabbed by Mitchell.

Jake Green pulls up to the Hawkins house, enlisting Robert's help in trying to find Jonah. They head to Emily Sullivan's house, suspecting that he would have gone there. They arrive at the same time as Gray's men, but deter Gray from searching Emily's house. Jake enters the house, and is confronted by Jonah, who claims that Mitchell is the one who killed Gracie. He then claims that Mitchell attacked him, but he was able to fight Mitchell off with a tire iron and flee. He is bleeding heavily from his wounds, and Jake gets Dr. Dhuwalia from the bar to treat him. After his arm is bandaged, Jonah makes a break for it.

Gail tells Dale that, following the deaths of his parents, Gracie had changed her will and left the store to him. Mitchell later confronts Dale at the store, threatening Dale at knife point, demanding that Dale share half of the store profits. Mitchell tells Dale that if he refuses, Dale will end up just like the store's previous owner, Gracie.

Gray and his men capture Jonah after a brief chase. Gray is elected the new mayor of Jericho after apprehending Jonah. During his inauguration speech, he declares that he will release the food that was airdropped in town, and seek "swift and sure" justice for Gracie's murderer. After the election, he prepares to take Jonah off to be killed after being found guilty by a makeshift tribunal. Dale, Jake, and his father arrive in time to save Jonah's life, and force Gray to rethink his actions. Jonah is spared, but exiled from the town. As he leaves, he appears to reconcile his relationship with Emily to some degree.

In celebration, Jake dances with Emily in the bar and, just as they are about to kiss, Eric calls them outside and they see a crowd of people with dirtied clothes, refugees who have walked to Jericho. Emily recognizes one of them as her missing fiancé, Roger. In an alley, Dale shoots Mitchell in the chest, then calmly walks away.

During the episode, Hawkins views another message that requests his coordinates. He is about to send them when he changes his mind and sends a message saying "Compromised. Proceed without me." - a decision that ties back into an earlier promise to spend more time with his family and less time with his mysterious plans or helping the police. At the end of the episode, he is sent a message that says, "We need to discuss why you are lying to us." A satellite mapping program appears and zooms in, showing an image of Hawkins holding a football, standing next to his wife, with his son nearby. A final text message says "See you soon".

Madie Levrington is a wealthy woman who is also neurotic. She was committed to a New York mental institution by her husband, Benjamin, in order to keep her from divorcing him and taking his money. She manages to escape and, in the process, hitches a ride on a livestock truck.

The truck is driven by Charles Callahan. Before realizing she is on his truck, he hears over his CB radio about her escape and a substantial reward for her return. This gets his attention as he is so in debt that he has a repo man after him to repossess his truck.

Behind her back, he meets up with people who are out to get Madie, and gets part of the reward money from the woman who leads them. At the same time, he is also slowly falling in love with her. He even teaches her to drive the truck (frantically, after he was hit in the crotch and sent flying by a bull).

Eventually she finds the money he was given and she wonders how he got it. He then reluctantly explains how, trying to explain that he took it unwillingly. She doesn't believe him and ends up getting in the truck and driving off without him.

He winds up hitching a ride on the back of a motorcycle with an older man. When they finally find the truck, he is forced to get off the bike and jump onto the back of the truck while both are still moving, thus putting him in her shoes at the beginning.

Madie drives the truck all the way back home to her husband, who is having a party in the backyard. Despite his pleas for her to stop the truck and that "everything will be just fine", in probably the most memorable scene in the film, she proceeds to wreak havoc on the party by running over everything in her way, and finally put the coup de grace on it by driving the truck through the house until it won't go any further.

After getting out of the truck, Benjamin tries to choke her to death, but Callahan jumps out of the trailer and tackles him to the canvas. Then she fingers him as the driver of the truck, and she and Callahan get away, but not before running one more time into the repo man, at which point he simply concedes the truck to him.

In the fictional British history depicted in the book, the Labour Party wins an overwhelming majority in general elections and forms a government. They do not institute a completely socialist economy, but increase wages frequently, tax the upper classes greatly and create a large government bureaucracy. In foreign policy, the Labour Government is conciliatory towards other powers and curtails military spending.

A powerful upper-class cabal (the "League" of the title), whose members feel that "the country is going to the dogs", makes careful secret preparations for overthrowing the government. Over two years, they secretly hoard large quantities of fuel oil and convert coal-burning plants to oil-burning. Then, they suddenly announce a consumer strike against the coal industry — at the time, a central part of the British economy — and cause large-scale unemployment and distress among coal miners and secondary industries dependent on coal. This culminates in civil war, during which the upper-class conspirators gain foreign help and are victorious.

Once in power, they forcibly dismantle the trade unions and institute a "strong" non-parliamentary regime resembling in many ways the Fascist regimes formed decades after the book's publication. As mentioned, the members of the League are the heroes of the story and their acts are described as positive and worthy.

The policies which Bramah attributed to his fictional Labour government proved a good prediction of those actually enacted by the Labour government of Clement Attlee, which gained power as a result of the 1945 United Kingdom general election. Bramah's fictional scenario significantly resembles how the Socialist government of President Salvador Allende in Chile (1970–1973) was "destabilised" and eventually overthrown with the help of the United States of America.

The film is narrated by Agathe De La Boulaye as "The Artist". She is obsessed with a nightclub singer (Claire Keim) whom she calls "The Girl". One night the girl takes the artist to the hotel where she lives and they make love. The girl, who does not usually sleep with women, tells the artist that it is "just one night" but they begin seeing each other. The girl continues to see men and the artist has a long term lover, Bu Savè (Sandra Nkake), who accepts the artist's obsession.

The artist draws and paints the girl, but gradually grows frustrated with her work. She notices a man (Cyril Lecomte) watching her and the girl. The man behaves aggressively and possessively towards the girl. He starts following the artist and sends threatening letters to the girl telling her to get rid of the artist. The girl refuses. The man follows the artist and tries to attack her. The artist asks advice from Bu Savè, who gives her a gun.

When the artist cannot find the girl, she discovers that she has gone away with the man, who turns out to be the owner of the nightclub where the girl sings. When the man and the girl return, the artist gives the girl the gun.

The artist gets beaten up by the man and his friend. Later when she goes to meet the girl at the hotel, she finds the man there, naked and asleep. She leaves. The next day she returns and tells the girl that she is leaving her. The artist puts all her energy into her painting. One day she goes back to the hotel. As she climbs the stairs, she hears gunshots. She finds the man dead and the girl with a gunshot wound to her side.

After the events of the second film, Scrat is trying to find a place to hide his acorn after he got it back, but ends up digging up a buried time machine over an ice-encased skeletal body of a human time traveler. The machine activates, stating the date that Scrat is in (May 26, 20,000 B.C.) While sniffing around the machine, he accidentally presses a button on it, and the machine powers up and then zaps the acorn. Scrat gets angry and tries to beat up the time machine, but it zaps him too, sending him to the Middle Ages, where he finds the acorn wedged under a rock. Scrat sees Excalibur, the sword in the stone, and decides to use it to move the rock and get back his acorn. He pulls out the sword but then finds himself under attack by a group of unseen Robin Hood archers, and uses the sword to block the arrows fired by the archers. He inadvertently frees the acorn in the process (and gets his tail wedged in the rock and having to yank it free) and takes it and the time machine and races off to find cover, only to hide in the barrel of a lit cannon. The cannon fires him into the path of hundreds of incoming arrows. The time machine zaps the acorn mid-flight and Scrat narrowly manages to activate the machine again for himself.

He materializes in the Coliseum during Ancient Rome. Scrat reaches for his acorn, but is dragged off when his tail is caught by a passing horse-drawn chariot. Scrat tries to pull his tail off, and begins to enjoy the ride (as he is "laughing" as the chariot pulls him) just as his crotch bashes against a rock. He then finds his acorn just as a fanfare sounds. He thinks it is victory music and introduces himself to the crowd like a triumphant gladiator, proudly holding up his acorn. Then he hears the growl of a lion coming from the tunnel behind him. He fires the time machine again before the lion can attack him, and lands on an ice field. He is overjoyed, thinking he is home, but he soon sees the RMS ''Titanic'' appear out of nowhere, heading straight towards him; he is actually in April 14, 1912 A.D. and on the frozen North Atlantic, the time and location of the ship's sinking. Scrat gets pressed into the iceberg that sank the ''Titanic'' by the ship's bow, and the time machine zaps Scrat and the acorn as they fall from the iceberg, taking Scrat to the time of the first ''Ice Age'' movie, where he encounters his past self, and the two Scrats fight each other for the acorn (Manny, Sid, Diego and Roshan are standing in the background watching the two fighting). The time machine is caught in the fight, and it zaps the acorn out of sight yet again, much to the distress of both past Scrat and future Scrat. Shortly after, future Scrat also gets zapped (after past Scrat angrily kicks the machine).

Scrat is then sent into many dangerous situations where he would have been killed if he had not activated the time machine in time; under a launching Saturn V rocket during the Space Race, in a dark, modern-day jewelry store (where he sets off the security alarms and lasers when he picks up a diamond he mistakes for his acorn), in a girl's locker room in the present (where he is hit by a roller brush), in the French Revolution (where he appears under the falling blade of a guillotine), during Benjamin Franklin's kite flying experiment (and almost gets electrocuted), in the path of a wrecking ball demolishing an old brick building, in front of the Hiroshima bombing, in the path of an oncoming train in the Wild West, and in front of the groin of Michelangelo's ''David'' (the latter does not threaten him, but he is rather embarrassed). Concerned, Scrat punches the machine, which sends him into a strange dimension (possibly a time vortex) of various timepieces. Scrat spots his acorn but briefly gets split into clones by a clock and grabs it just before being drawn into a wormhole along with his acorn and the time machine.

The wormhole lands Scrat in front of an enormous oak tree. Overjoyed at the sight of so many acorns, he tosses away his own acorn, which lands on and almost causes the time machine to fire again, but not before Scrat pulverizes it. Scrat attempts to remove the nuts from the tree, but soon discovers that it is only a monument of some sort, with a plaque on it reading "Here Stood the Last Oak Tree"; Scrat is in the distant future, where oak trees (and therefore acorns) are extinct. He realizes that the acorn he brought with him is the only real one around. He makes a dash for it, but the time machine somehow fires one final time, transporting the acorn right out of his paws right before the time machine collapses into pieces. Stranded in the acorn-less future, Scrat lets out a scream of frustration, ending the film and the forever-lost acorn ends up floating behind the credits.

Pablo is a struggling poet who is living with HIV in Buenos Aires. Over the course of a year he deals with issues relating to his health, his family, his search for love and his developing involvement with leather fetishism. The year culminates with the publication of his diary in the form of a novel, ''Un Año sin amor.''

While searching for his missing father, Kit Taylor finds an Advent Deck—a special card deck that allows the carrier to transform into a Kamen Rider and utilize unique weapons and powers—and uses it to become Kamen Rider Dragon Knight. He butts heads with Len, who serves as Kamen Rider Wing Knight, but the pair join forces after Kit learns that an alien warlord named Xaviax is responsible for his father's disappearance and intends on abducting him and the entire human race to gain power and rebuild Xaviax's homeworld. Xaviax tricks people on Earth into working for him by promising them whatever they want, or in some cases, by exploiting their fears and desperation. Kit wonders why Xaviax has to trick them and why he doesn't just find bad guys to do the work for him. Len tells Kit that the decks were only made for one person and that only a person with an exact DNA match to the original Ventaran rider could use it. This is why Kit can use the Dragon Knight Deck: he is the exact Mirror Twin of Adam, the original Dragon Knight, who betrayed the original team. One of the new Earth Riders, Chris Ramirez (serving as Kamen Rider Sting and tricked by Xaviax into believing he is working in a special ops government program to fight alien invaders), joins forces with Kit and Len when he discovers he has been deceived but is Vented—a process which traps defeated Riders in the "Advent Void" between dimensions forever and removes their Advent Decks—along the way. Kit vents Albert Cho, brother of Danny Cho, in retaliation. This leads to a personal hatred between Danny and Kit, as Danny seeks to avenge his brother against Xaviax's orders.

Later, Kase, a fellow survivor of Ventara like Len, joins forces with Len and Kit to fight Xaviax. In addition to training Kit as a Kamen Rider, Len and Kase tell Kit all about the twelve Riders who banded together as the protectors of Ventara—a world opposite to our own—to take Xaviax down. However, due to the unintentionally–traitorous actions of Kit's predecessor, Adam, Xaviax vented most of the Riders. Furthermore, Xaviax continues to send out Riders who fight to eliminate Kit, Len, and the other Riders who oppose him. After Kit is Vented, Xaviax recruits Adam to once again become Dragon Knight. Unlike when Xaviax convinced Adam to 'betray' the Riders by playing to his desire to remain with the girl he loved, Xaviax now uses a combination of blackmail and using Adam's girlfriend as a hostage to force Adam to work for him.

Meanwhile, Len uses his Advent Deck to awaken the Advent Master Eubulon—who brings back the Ventaran Kamen Riders from the Advent Void—and Kit, who becomes Kamen Rider Onyx. He also brings back Kase, though Eubulon is forced to briefly reassign the Advent Deck to Maya Young while Kase is trapped in the Advent Void. Once Kase is better, Maya gives back the deck, and the Riders head for Xaviax's base to destroy him. In the end, all the Ventaran Riders regain their decks, while all the Earth Riders (except Kit) have been released from the Advent Void & have their memories erased and returned to their normal lives, leaving Kit as the true owner of the Dragon deck after the previous owner Adam retires his deck thus officially becoming Kamen Rider Dragon Knight & the only active Earth Kamen Rider, leaving the Onyx deck inactive. But as the remnants of Xaviax's army and other dangers continue to threaten Ventara & Earth, Kit, along with Len, Kase and the other riders continue to protect both planets.

Mma Ramotswe talks with her fiance Mr JLB. Matekoni about the future of her assistant, Mma Makutsi, who seems to have difficulty finding suitable men. Later the two women discuss the same topic. At Mr JLB Matekoni's garage, the younger apprentice changes, no longer always looking at girls. He has found religion. When Mma Ramotswe arrives at home, both of her foster children seem down, with Motholeli and Puso being the subject of mainly verbal bullying. Motheleli seems to get over this, while Puso projects his anger at his foster parents.

Mma Makutsi opens a typing school just for men, because men do not enroll at the Secretarial College because they do not want to be bettered by women, though they need to type in their jobs. She obtains typewriters from her alma mater, the Botswana Secretarial College, and finds a place to teach at the younger apprentice's church. This business is very successful, filling three sessions with one advertisement. Mma Makutsi gets involved with one of her students, Mr Bernard Selelipeng, a married man passing himself off as divorced. Mr Selelipeng is forced to break off with Mma Makutsi, as his wife consulted with Mma Ramotswe about her husband cheating on her. The wife mentions that she first went to the Satisfaction Guaranteed Agency, but got unsatisfactory results there.

To address the problem with Puso, Mma Ramotswe consults the matron Mma Silvia Potokwani at the orphanage. Mma Potokwani advises having Mr J.L.B Matekoni act as more of a father to the boy. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni does this, with favourable results.

Mr Molefelo approaches Mma Ramotswe for a delicate matter. He is a prosperous civil engineer in Lobatse who is also the proprietor of a hotel and landowner with an ostrich ranch. As a young student at the Botswana Technical College in Gaborone, he had a girlfriend whom he had made pregnant. In order to pay for an abortion (which is illegal in Botswana) he had to pay 100 pula (about $20). As he had no way to get money, he stole a radio from his host family, the Tsolamoseses. After the abortion, he got angry with his girlfriend and broke up with her. He wants to make amends with both. Mma Ramotswe finds them so he can do this.

A rival detective agency, called the Satisfaction Guaranteed Agency, has come to town. The business is owned by Cephas Buthelezi, "Ex-CID, Ex-New York, Ex-cellent!". He is of Zulu origin. His advertising is derogatory towards the No. 1 Agency in a sideways manner; he implies that one needs a man to do detective work properly. However, his hubris is repaid, as he tells Mma Ramotswe that he is giving up the business.

The story ends with a picnic, attended by the apprentices, Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, Mr JLB Matekoni, Rra and Mma Potokwani, Mma Boko, and Mr Molefelo and his family.

Winston Weynes is sent to Camp High Pines as a gift for his birthday. Winston's father, who is concerned by his son's lack of interest in "normal" activities such as sports and playing outside, feels attending camp will be a healthy activity for his son. Because Winston initially believes he will not like the camp, he brings a few books and the diary his uncle gave him for his birthday. Upon arrival, Winston finds he enjoys the camp and is elected as leader of his cabin.

Several of the older boys, led by Frank Reilley and Stanley Runk, plot a revolutionary takeover of the camp. Winston and a couple of his friends join in the effort. The only older boy to voice dissent to the idea is Don Egriss, a thoughtful and introspective African-American boy who is one of the only minorities present at the camp.

Stanley Runk, armed with a large hunting knife takes Mr. Warren hostage while the other boys round up the rest of the staff and throw them into the camp's "jail". The boys proceed to Low Pines, the sister camp for girls nearby, and capture the adults there as well. Various teenage and preteen boys and girls are made "officers" and given charge over various aspects of the Revolution. A "Supreme Revolutionary Committee", or SRC, consisting of Frank Reilley and some of his more trusted cohorts, makes all important decisions. Winston, as "Chairman of the Propaganda Committee", soon becomes part of the SRC.

Winston becomes uneasy at the level of totalitarian control becoming evident in the camp's operations. When he voices these concerns, a boy named George Meridel denounces him as a Communist. At the same time, the revolution faces internal conflicts as Reilley and Runk get into a power struggle. Winston learns that Reilley has in his possession a gun that belonged to Mr. Warren. Winston gets into trouble with the SRC by refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning. Don Egriss tries to escape the camp but is captured. Winston is placed under the control of his enemy, Bob Daly. When he hits Bob Daly with a wooden lance, he is jailed temporarily. Soon after his release Don Egriss and John Mason get into a fight. Mr. Warren's gun is thrown into the cell and Egriss, fearing for his life, shoots Mason in self-defense, killing him.

Meanwhile, the girls at Low Pines have been calling for John Mason's blood due to his having raped one of the campers. With Mason dead, the girls threaten violence and are given Don Egriss instead. They lynch Egriss and leave his body to rot in the woods, where Winston buries him.

The police invade High Pines and take several children into custody. The police interrogate Winston about his activities on the SRC and ask if he really read Communist books and refused to say the Pledge, which he does not deny. Winston is released to his parents. It is revealed that Reilley and some of his cohorts killed Mr. Warren and hid his body in a cave. Winston, who feels he has lost his innocence, is comforted by his uncle.

The story is told in the form of a series of journal entries made by Beka Cooper as she trains to become a Provosts Dog, a nickname for the police men and women in the employ of the Lord Provost of Tortall, with a prelude taken from Eleni Cooper's diary in which she relates Beka's story to her son George. Beka is also the surrogate daughter of the Provost, having helped him capture a band of dangerous criminals when she was only 8 years old. Lord Gershom adopts her, her mother, and her brothers and sisters from the "scummer" life of Mutt Piddle Lane, where the very poor live.

Beka begins her training assigned as a Puppy, or a Dog in his or her first year of training, to two revered senior Dogs in the Lower City: Clary Goodwin and Mattes Tunstall. Though the Dogs are initially unsure of their new charge, Beka proves to be a valuable resource, although she is extremely shy and has a hard time speaking in front of people.

Through Beka's unusual magical abilities, she is able to hear the voices of ghosts who ride the backs of pigeons until they are ready to enter the Peaceful Realms of the Black God (the god of death). She can also hear snippets of conversations that may contain valuable information caught by "dust spinners," beings made of breeze and dirt mixed from the city streets. From these sources she learns of two grave threats to the Lower City. One is the Shadow Snake.

Old bedtime tales featured the Shadow Snake as something to instill good behaviors into small children. However, a ruthless killer who abducts these children has taken on the name, and uses the threat of harming the children to force their parents to give up their most prized valuable possessions, killing the kidnapped children if the price is not paid.

The other threat is an unknown party who keeps hiring digging crews to search for fire opals (rare and extremely expensive stones that not only have irresistible beauty, but supply mages with a certain power). Then they swear the workers to secrecy, and kill them when the job is done.

Beka's determination to see both parties brought to justice will place her in the middle of a power struggle in Tortall's underworld.

Beka's cat, Pounce, helps Beka throughout the book. Pounce has purple eyes and it has been observed that he may be god-marked. Tamora Pierce has noted in her blog that Pounce is the same character known as Faithful, Alanna's cat in the Song of the Lioness quartet.[http://tammypierce.livejournal.com/9409.html Beka's books (...) don't have any characters from the other Tortall books except Pounce] It is worth noting that the first name that is suggested for Faithful was "Pounce".

In the second novel in this series it is revealed that Pounce is actually a constellation, not a god. However, he has the ability to speak, hear Beka's thoughts at close range when she wishes, and perform tasks most cats cannot.

Crookshank is a landlord who owns most property in the Lower City and is hated by everyone for his unfairly high rates and his cruel retaliation when rent cannot be paid. His grandson, Rolond, is killed by the alleged Shadow Snake. Beka is best friends with Tansy, Crookshank's granddaughter-in-law, which helps Beka gain extra information about what is going on in the household.

Through her training as a Dog, her time spent with pigeons and Dust Spinners, and with the help of her friends Koramin Ingensra, Rosto the Piper, and Aniki Forfrysning (a mage, rusher, and a sword fighter who work for the Rogue, the king of crime in the city) Beka gains information about the opals and the Shadow Snake.

She soon discovers that it is Crookshank who has been hiring the diggers to be murdered, and the Shadow Snake is demanding a large number of fire opals.

After Crookshank's son has also been taken by the Snake, and he still refuses to pay up, Beka and her Dogs discover the culprit- or at least who they think is the culprit: the son of Mistress Noll, a local baker, named Yates, who commits suicide instead of allowing himself to be captured. When Beka goes to tell Mistress Noll the news, she discovers it was not her son, but the mother who was the Snake.

Noll sends a curse flying at Beka, but Pounce gets in the way and eats the curse, giving Beka time to arrest Mistress Noll, who is later brought to justice for her crimes.

Crookshank later dies in a riot, and Rosto, Beka's rusher friend, becomes Rogue, making Kora and Aniki District Chiefs (acting Rogues for each district.)

Lucy Fowler, a construction firm employee, has a habit of drinking on weekends, having a one-night stand, and, come early morning, waking up and leaving quickly, checking out and paying for the motel room.

Through her grandmother, she finds out that her father, a shy man who has nothing to say to her, is back in town, and eventually she goes to his new church. During a visit to her local bar, called The Forge, she runs into a woman who slept with her father. A brawl begins and she is rescued by Cal Percell, a new guy in town. She attends church with her father on Sunday morning with a beaten up face.

Carting around a jukebox she bought from the bar, she has a beer with Cal and gives him an invitation to ask her out. She kisses him sober, but still has demons to confront.

She has sex with him that night and tries to leave the next morning without him noticing but he wakes up and gives her a ride. Eventually she apologizes.

The story focuses mainly on two characters that the player will have the opportunity to control: Toma, a brash sword wielder who dreams of being "King of the World," and Cyrille, a mage of sorts whose reasons for searching for the Shining Force are a well kept mystery. Joining the party almost immediately will be the other half of its members, Gadfort, who wants the blade to become the greatest knight in existence, and Maebelle, an elfin archer seeking the blade to save her people. Their story will unfold in a world that is shared by humans, demons, and beasts that is constantly devastated by war. The world is divided into two main kingdoms. The Noswald Empire is home to the human race and the demons rule the southern territory, Fyrlandt.

Logan Tom and the Ghosts

Beginning where ''Armageddon's Children'' ended, Knight of the Word Logan Tom races to save the gypsy morph Hawk and his girlfriend Tessa from being thrown to their deaths from atop Safeco Field. He is too late but learns that a brilliant white light enveloped the two as they fell, apparently saved by an unknown magic. Logan doesn't know where they have gone, but sees a demon invasion force preparing to land at Seattle's waterfront. Meanwhile, the Ghosts head toward the agreed upon rendezvous point and Logan Tom goes to find them.

While evacuating the city, Panther and Sparrow are separated from the Ghost tribe. The Ghosts encounter a group of mutant children on the freeway, and escape them but not before Squirrel is killed. Logan runs into Panther and Sparrow, helping them fight off Croaks and reunite with the tribe. They leave the city in Logan's all-terrain vehicle as they see the demon hordes besiege Safeco Field. Owl realizes their dog Cheney has gone missing.

The Lady of the Word appears to Logan and tells him to head south to the Columbia River where Hawk will meet them with many followers. He is also told that another Knight of the Word will bring the Elves and their magic, upon which humankind's future depends. She tasks him with protecting them all, no matter the cost. As he and the Ghosts travel south, the Weatherman succumbs to plague, and they pick up two new companions, a partially mutated Lizard named Cat (for Catayla) and her pet cat named Rabbit. They also have a run-in with killer robots at Oronyx Experimental Robotics Systems. Later they are ambushed by followers of Krilka Koos, a rogue Knight of the Word that Logan had once heard about (from the Spiders in the mountains when trying to reach Seattle in ''Armageddon's Children''). near Longview. In exchange for the children's safety, Logan agrees to go with them to meet Krilka. Krilka, having fallen from the Word, asks Logan to join his own crusade. Logan refuses and is forced to fight the Knight of the Word surrounded by Krilka's army. Logan Tom narrowly wins, but refuses to kill Krilka, who vows to hunt down and kill Logan and the Ghosts. He then plunges a poison dart into Logan's leg. Delirious, Logan shoots fire from his staff at the crowd, causing them to panic and flee. The ghosts manage to extricate Logan and escape in the ATV.

Angel Perez and the Elves

In the Elven city of Arborlon, Kirisin and Erisha are caught in the library by Culph, the King's historian. Culph offers to help them find the seeking Elfstones, revealing that they were buried with the powerful Elven Queen Pancea Rolt Cruer. However, they are unable to find her grave. The Knight of the Word Angel Perez and the tatterdemalion Ailie arrive in the Cintra shortly afterward, escorted by a group of Elven Trackers, including Kirisin's sister Simralin. Angel and Ailie are given an audience with the High Council and the King, while Culph lead Kirisin and Erisha to a vantage point where they can eavesdrop on the meeting. Angel and Ailie tell the Council that they have been sent by the Word to help them take the elves and the Ellcrys to a safe place. Angel has been tasked with helping the Elves to find the Loden Elfstone, and is dismayed to learn that the Elves retain almost no knowledge of the Elfstones.

The Council is astounded. The King confirms that Kirisin told him of a warning from the Ellcrys, but didn't inform the Council. The King remains skeptical and orders a more extensive search of the histories and they will reconvene in two days. Kirisin, Erisha, Simralin, Angel, and Ailie meet later that night to share information on the Elfstones and theorize as to why the King seems unwilling to help them. Ailie makes a startling revelation, that she sensed a demon at the Council meeting. At the same time, the demon Delloreen (who has now mutated to have an animal-like, scaly form, with virtually no vestiges of any human-like qualities), who had been tracking Angel, enters the Cintra. To her surprise, she finds a fellow demon disguised as an elf. The two become allies with the disguised demon taking command.

The following evening, Kirisin, Erisha, Simralin, Angel, and Ailie follow clues to another part of the graveyard and find the Elf Queen's grave. They encounter the shade of the Queen, who nearly kills the party in anger for allowing Elven magic to fade. Instead she forces Kirisin to promise to persuade the Elves to rediscover their magic and to begin using it again. She says that Kirisin has magic that he is currently unaware of and that what he must do, he must do alone. She gives Kirisin the Elfstones and disappears.

Delloreen attacks the party in the graveyard, killing Ailie and Erisha. Simralin stabs the beast in the eye with an Elven blade and Delloreen flees. They find they are pursued by the Elven guard and flee the city to seek the Loden. Once clear of the city, Kirisin uses the Elfstones, which direct them to Syrring Rise (current day Mount Rainier). They head north, still pursued by the two demons. At the Columbia River they find a blind elven ex-tracker named Larkis Quill, who ferries them across as the bridges are all occupied by militias. The three leave Larkis and travel by a secret elven hot air balloon to Syrring Rise. While ascending the snowy peak, Angel senses Delloreen's presence and stays behind. She confronts the demon and blinds it by clawing out its remaining eye. Delloreen is finally killed, but not before savagely injuring Angel. She later awakens from unconsciousness fearing internal injuries, but resumes her climb up the mountain's face.

Within the ice caves on the mountain's peak, Kirisin and Simralin find a frozen, life-size statue of a dragon. Deep within the statue's cavernous throat, Kirisin finds the Loden. As he exits the dragon's mouth, however, he and Simralin are assaulted by Culph, who reveals himself as the demon. Simralin is seriously wounded by Culph, and is lying on the floor nearly unconscious. Culph explains that he had been lying to the king but still aiding in the search for the Loden, because the demons believe they can eliminate the elven threat to them by imprisoning them in the Loden. Needing an elf to wield the Loden, Culph tries to cast a mind-controlling spell on Kirisin. However, he lets slip that seeking Elfstones can also be used as weapons in time of great need. Although greatly weakened, Simralin is able to stab Culph in the leg, distracting him. This frees Kirisin from the spell that Culph was just about to complete. Kirisin is then able to direct the seeking Elfstones towards Culph, disintegrating him in blue fire.

Hawk, Tessa, and Cheney

After disappearing from Safeco Field, Hawk was transported to a strange garden where he meets a mystical old man called the King of the Silver River, who tells him Tessa is safe and sleeping. As they walk through the garden, the old man tells of Hawk's origins and reveals that it was his magic that saved Hawk at the Safeco Field. Finally, the old man tells Hawk that his purpose is to save the human race and that he will lead several thousand Humans, Elves, and others to a Promised Land. As Hawk falls asleep next to Tessa, the old man reveals that Hawk will awaken in his own world with Tessa and Cheney, and that several weeks will have passed.

Hawk, Tessa, and Cheney awake to find themselves near the Columbia River. They head upstream and encounter the survivors of the Anaheim Complex that Angel had previously rescued. The survivors are now led by a woman named Helen Rice, who is skeptical that Hawk was sent to guide them to safety. As the group approaches a bridge controlled by militia, Hawk discovers some of his innate magic. He touches some nearby flora, and within minutes, vines and plant life erupt from the ground and subdue the militia. The survivors cross the bridge when Hawk learns that an army led by Findo Gask is approaching from the south. Unknown to Hawk, Findo has sensed the gypsy morph (Hawk) once again and entreats a monstrous demon called "the Klee" to find and destroy it. Despite the approaching danger, Hawk leaves the party with Tessa and Cheney to search for the Ghost tribe, instructing Helen to take in any other refugees she finds. Finally, they find the Ghosts and Logan Tom, who has been in a coma for two days.

''So Much to Tell You'', based on a true story, it is an amazing book is presented as a diary written by a 14-year-old girl known as Marina. who goes to a bording school. Marina has a scarred face because she was the incidental victim of an incident involving acid, a wound her father gave her, intended for her mother. She refused to talk to anyone during her long recovery period in hospital, so she was sent to Warrington, a girls' boarding school because nothing else appeared to be working. But even after her arrival, she maintains her silence. Then, one day, her English teacher Mr Lindell encourages the class to keep journals. Even though Marina is determined not to make use of her diary, she cannot resist writing about some of the seemingly trivial events of her day. However, the content of her entries becomes more and more revealing over time, and readers can better understand Marina's world: how her friends and teachers create profound and lasting impressions on her psyche. Marina goes from not interacting with others at all, opening up and socialising, and eventually finding non-verbal communication methods. However, as the book continues, Marina's negative feelings towards her father fade away, and by the end of the book, she devises a plan which enables her to see him again. When she speaks for the first time, in such a long time, she utters her only words for the entire novel: "Hello, Dad... I've got so much to tell you..."

Tom Paris and Harry Kim are out taking the new ''Delta Flyer'', rebuilt after the destruction of the first, for a spin through an asteroid field when they are challenged to a drag race by a pilot named Irina in another craft. As they race they detect a gas leak on board her shuttle. They beam her to safety and bring her craft back to ''Voyager'' for repairs.

Irina tells them that she's training with her craft for an important race. Interested, Paris and Kim persuade Captain Janeway to let them enter the ''Delta Flyer'' into the race. Janeway agrees because the race is a milestone of peace between four warring cultures who have finally come together to end their strife.

B'Elanna Torres is disappointed that Paris will be racing; she had put serious effort into planning some time off for the two to spend together, and in his excitement over the race, Tom forgets about their plans. He apologizes to her and she claims it is no problem but is inwardly depressed. She even begins to have doubts about their relationship. She confides in Neelix, who convinces her to be patient with Tom, since she really does love him. Seven of Nine suggests that B'Elanna take up some of Tom's hobbies and interests so that they might spend more time together. That thought gives B'Elanna an idea.

On the day of the race Tom is surprised to find that B'Elanna has taken Harry's place as his co-pilot. She promises to do her best to help the ''Flyer'' to victory. As the race nears its end something goes wrong in one of the other shuttles. It's Irina's ship. Her co-pilot has been injured in a console explosion when their shield generators overloaded in an act of sabotage. The rest of the race is cancelled for the day and as Harry helps Irina with her shuttle, she invites him to be her new co-pilot.

Seeing romance sparking between Harry and Irina, B'Elanna has more feelings of doubt about Tom's dedication to their relationship. As the race starts up again, she tries to put her pensive feelings aside and concentrate on winning, but she is not able to hide her distress. She and Tom begin to argue and he insists she tell him what is wrong. Frustrated, he stops the ''Flyer'' right in the middle of the race and declares they will not move until they resolve their problem.

At the same time, Harry discovers more damage on board Irina's ship, and that she caused it herself. She pulls a weapon on him but he gets it away from her and holds her safely at bay. Irina is bent on sabotaging the peace agreement between the four cultures involved in the race, and she has turned her own ship into a terrorist bomb. To make things worse, she has planted a bomb on board the ''Delta Flyer'' as well. Still holding her at phaserpoint, Harry sends Tom a message to inform him of the danger.

Tom and B'Elanna receive the message just as he makes his devotion to her a bit clearer by proposing marriage. They speed the ''Flyer'' into a nearby nebula and eject the sabotaged warp core where it explodes a safe distance from the racers and spectators. Irina is taken into custody.

The next mission of the ''Delta Flyer'' is shown to be Tom and B'Elanna's honeymoon.

The film opens on divorce proceedings involving Ray Reardon, a successful architect, and his first wife. Shortly after their divorce, he agrees to go to a gallery opening to meet a woman with whom his obnoxious friend, Norman, sets him up.

While there, he embarrasses himself by bumping into a woman, making her spill wine on herself. She wastes no time verbally abusing him. A week later, he runs into the woman, named Lena Mathers, at the supermarket. She apologizes for her behavior and the two go to dinner. They have sex the next day, marry shortly thereafter, and become parents.

Despite his happiness in the marriage, Ray becomes suspicious after catching Lena in several lies about her past. An assistant for one of his clients went to Swarthmore College one year before Lena but, while the assistant remembers the university president dying of a heart attack while giving a university wide talk, Lena has no recollection of the president, thinking he was another student. A woman meets the couple at a restaurant but Lena says the woman has confused her for a woman named "Sissy" from Piru, Texas. A few years later, Ray visits Piru, Texas and is told by a town resident that a picture of Lena shown by Ray is Sissy, nickname for Thelma. He visits the family home and meets Lena's parents, who recognize him and know his name. He finds out that alleged beatings of Lena as a child by her mother didn't happen (admitted by Lena) and that Lena had told her parents Ray was an employee of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Over time, Ray becomes increasingly paranoid when his wife begins sporting bruises that she will not explain and begins doing things that indicate she is having an affair. During a tense confrontation, Lena taunts Ray by claiming to have had an affair with an unnamed friend of his and refusing to tell Ray if their children are biologically his. Ray hits Lena, who then has him arrested and committed to a mental hospital for observation.

Despite an attempt to prove that Lena has been lying, the judge finds Ray to be mentally incompetent and orders him held for six months. Shortly after Ray has been committed, Lena privately admits to him that his suspicions about her were correct all along and that she had planned for years to do what she did to get his money.

Realising that he has been thoroughly deceived and his property and children usurped, Ray devises a plan to seek revenge. He convinces Elaine to tell Lena that she has made a mistake in her "master plan". Elaine suspects Lena has been having an affair with Larry, who secretly bought a house in New Zealand without Elaine's knowledge and might be an escape plan by Lena.

Lena shows up at his birthday party to talk to him. Ray lures her away from the attendants who are supposed to be supervising him and tells her that having him declared insane was the "mistake" because he could not now be held legally accountable for killing her. He then proceeds to strangle her to death on the lawn.

The Big Bad Wolf as Bo Peep While the Big Bad Wolf is describing to his three sons the edible parts of a pig, Fifer Pig and Fiddler Pig discover a wolf alarm, which is in the form of a horn. Then they discover their brother Practical Pig building a contraption called a Wolf Pacifier. Fifer Pig and Fiddler Pig play around with the wolf alarm to get Practical's attention, and when he discovers that it was just a trick, he warns his brothers that if they get caught by the Wolf and blow the wolf alarm, he will think it is a trick.

However, the Big Bad Wolf and his three sons are stalking Fifer Pig and Fiddler Pig. The Wolf disguises himself as Little Bo Peep and sadly tells the pigs that he/she lost his/her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. Then the pigs discover the Wolf's three sons disguised as sheep, and they all run home to their cave. Then the Wolf locks the door and swallows the key. In the first place, the pigs embarrassedly think that "Bo Peep" has romantic intentions, but the wolves spring their trap and overwhelm the pigs. They try to blow the wolf alarm, but Practical Pig doesn't come to the rescue. Soon Fifer Pig and Fiddler Pig are put in a roasting pan by the wolves and they repeatedly blow the wolf alarm. Still hoping for Practical Pig to come to the rescue, the pigs challenge the wolf cub blowing the wolf alarm to blow it really loudly. He tries to, but he can't, and the pigs tell him by that it was just a "sissy blow". So the Big Bad Wolf blows the wolf alarm to prove what the wolf family is made of. This time, it is so loud that Practical Pig hears it and hurries to the rescue, pulling the Wolf Pacifier along behind him.

While the Wolf is about to put the pigs in the oven, he hears a knock at the door. It is Practical Pig disguised as an Italian vegetable peddler. He is giving a free sample on tomatoes, and the Wolf accepts the offer and comes out. He tells him: "Let me have it", but Practical Pig throws a tomato in the Wolf's face instead. The Wolf angrily chases Practical Pig into the Wolf Pacifier. The result is that the Wolf gets assaulted by the contraption's many mechanisms: buzzsawed, smashed the head by rolling pins, kicked by boots, punched by boxing gloves, tarred, feathered, and shot out of a cannon, with his sons following him. Then the pigs emerge from the wolves' den, playing ''Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?'' patriotically, with Fifer Pig playing a flute, Fiddler Pig playing a drum, and Practical Pig holding a white flag, which is the Wolf's pair of Bo Peep bloomers.

Usagi Tsukino is a below average 14 year old girl who is constantly late for school. She wishes she could become like her idol Sailor V. She gets this wish fulfilled when a black cat shows up and gives her super hero powers. Now she must find the others of her team. She finds Ami Mizuno, who is rumored to be a genius. She turns out to be Sailor Mercury. Next she finds Rei, a miko of Hikawa Jinja, who turns out to be Sailor Mars. They all work together to try to find the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou. In an effort to do so they attend a ball, but find that their lead is not true. Meantime Usagi is falling for Tuxedo Mask and Mamoru, whom they don't know is friend or foe. They finally find Makoto Kino is Sailor Jupiter and then go on a search for the ginzuishou and the princess.

Setting

After the Eldar on Lorn V break their alliance with the Imperial Guard during the events of ''Winter Assault'', the Guard form a task force led by Colonel Lukas Aleksander to hunt their leader, Farseer Taldeer. The awakening of Necrons on the fringe planet of Kronus triggers her journey to the planet, with Aleksander in pursuit. The planet has been under the tenuous control of the Tau Empire for centuries, having wrested it from the Imperium of Mankind and subjugated its human population. The protagonist of ''Fire Warrior'', Kais, leads the Tau forces arriving on the planet. Feral Orks are combined into a force by the arrival of Warboss Gorgutz, who killed the former ruler of Lorn V, the Chaos Lord Crull. The Chaos Lord Eliphas commanding forces from the Chaos Undivided warband Word Bearers arrives in turn to conquer the world and retrieve Crull's skull. Blood Raven Space Marines under the charge of Captain Davian Thule are tasked by Chapter Master Azariah Kyras to purge the world and retrieve relics and information pertaining to the chapter's early history. However, Thule's orders lead him into conflict with the Imperial Guard forces.

Possible Endings

Tau: The Tau regain control of Kronus. Imperial Guard forces and human dissidents are forced into reeducation camps. Humanity becomes a small minority on Kronus, with mass sterilization rumored to have been undertaken. Chaos: Eliphas ascends into Daemonhood, uses Kronus as a staging point, and leads Chaos forces in the most devastating offensive since the Horus Heresy. Necron: The Necrons purge Kronus of all life, and campaigns throughout nearby systems, repelling all attempts at retaking the planet. Ork: Gorgutz uses the planet as a recruiting ground for his later campaigns. Imperial Guard: Aleksander remains on the planet as its Imperial governor. He yields command of his regiment, passing it to his deputy. Eldar: Taldeer leaves the planet after putting enemy forces into chaos, leaving it as anarchic, contested by warlords.

Canonical Plot

The canonical plot of the game follows the Blood Ravens. The Blood Ravens defeat the Imperial Guard and kill Colonel Aleksander. The survivors are given treatment and evacuated off-world. The Blood Ravens then defeat the Eldar, capturing and then executing their leader, Taldeer. The Word Bearers are defeated and Eliphas' body is destroyed by a daemon. The Necron Lord of Kronus is destroyed by Thule, though he loses an eye in the process. The Tau and Orks are defeated by an unknown force. With the Blood Ravens victorious, the world is returned to the Imperium of Man, though not before it is purged and pillaged. The Imperial Guard report the Blood Ravens to the Imperial Inquisition, though Thule and his officers manage to convince the Inquisition that their actions were justified. However, the victory on Kronus precedes the revelation of Kyras' allegiance to Chaos, and the defeat of the Blood Ravens in the Kaurava System.

Campaign

The expansion features a "Risk-based strategic layer", a campaign including a "meta-map", similar to that in Westwood Studios's Dune games as opposed to the programmed, linear storylines of previous versions. Due to this lack of linearity, there is no plot aside from the opening cinematic; rather, as the player conquers various opposing factions the game provides a narrative specific to whom the player has conquered. If the player wins the campaign, a cinematic is played that depends on which faction the player was controlling.

The player may pick a faction to play as, and then engages in turn-based combat with the other A.I.-controlled factions. There are multiple provinces, which are conquered by fighting a regular skirmish match over them. These may either give a special bonus or supply special 'honour guard' units, which are powerful, non-trainable versions of regular units. They may only be made on the main battlefield overview screen, and, like provincial reinforcements, cost planetary requisition, a resource gained on a per-turn basis based on how many provinces the player controls. Honour guard units transfer over provinces and may be used repeatedly. There are also seven 'Stronghold' provinces that function as bases for respective factions; these are made like more traditional campaign games, with multiple secondary and primary objectives that vary from faction to faction.

The Tau commander, equipped with a majority of wargear upgrades. Also, a race's commander unit may be upgraded with special "wargear", unique, customizable upgrades that vary by race. These are awarded at battle milestones, ranging from a certain amount of kills to conquering many provinces.

Campaign scenarios are persistent, meaning that all player structures are 'saved' when a game is won. For example, if a player builds a base and conquers a province, only to have a neighbouring faction attack aforementioned province, the player will start out with his previous base, with the exception of having no technology researched. Also, the CPU always starts out in the same spot, rather than being random. If you build a defense around the CPU's starting point and it's too close, it will be removed at the beginning of the defense match. Players may also choose to garrison provinces with units that are instantly available should the province be attacked. These are bought with planetary requisition.

In the game, players pilot a ship called the Flintlock in order to save a blue-haired princess named Elaine of the planet E-Square from an evil lord named Klaus. Each stage is punctuated with a cutscene of the princess crying for help.

The attempt to destroy the rogue computer from Nonterraqueous failed. Now the computer threatens to self-destruct with old age, taking the planet Nonterraqueous with it. The people of the planet create another robot, one with the mind of a man. On a kamikaze mission to the computer's core, it must locate the three keys to allow it to transport to the next section, before self-destructing inside the computer's core.

In the first story, a comedy, a content suburban family, headed by Jack Warner, is turned into an unhappy lot by their various reactions to a win on the football pools. When matters reach a point where they begin wishing that they had never won the money, the youngest daughter (Petula Clark) announces that in fact she forgot to post their entry, and they all regain their previously happy lives. But then it is discovered that it was a previous entry she had forgotten to post and the winning coupon was mailed, and they decide that they have learned a lesson and resolve not to let the money ruin their happiness.

In the second, a mild-mannered clerk (Mervyn Johns) with a domineering wife wins a large amount but becomes concerned when his wife insists he quit his mundane job. He finds the prospect of having to tell his employer that he is resigning too daunting, so he plots with a friend that he will fake illness as a way of leaving, but the deceit proves so taxing that he suffers a heart attack.

The third is a crime caper involving a part-time coupon checker (Dennis Price) and his nightclub singer girlfriend (Greta Gynt) who devise a scheme to embezzle the winning pot.

The final episode, another comedy, concerns a disillusioned double-bass player (Edward Rigby) who after a large win on the pools discovers he misses his friends in the orchestra he left, so he becomes its benefactor, subject to the condition that the double-bass section is given unusual prominence in the orchestral lineup.

The plot centered around Ardal Pashandi (Mehran Modiri), Bamshad Pahnfar (Reza Shafie-Jam), and their wives, Manizhe and Mozhdeh Jaberi (Sahar Valadbeigi). Ardal and Bamshad often got themselves in sticky situations that they tried to hide from their wives, but they were always found out by the end of each episode. The show began with Ardal as a bachelor living with his aged father (Yoosef Pashandi) in an apartment building owned by Mr. Pirdoost (Saeed Pirdoost) who lived with his bachelor son Kourosh (Siamak Ansari). Bamshad Pahnfar and Mozhdeh Jaberi were a young married couple living in the building that often interfered in Ardal's business. Ardal later meets and falls in love with Mozhdeh's sister, Manizh Jaberi (Sahar Jafari Jozani) and they get married and live in Ardal's apartment with his father. Manizh is a dentist and has a practice inside her home. Bamshad and Ardal later go work for Daddy Jaberi (Mohammad-Reza Hedayati), their father-in-law, at his company Manchoolbaf. The show was similar to ''The Honeymooners'' in that it featured two married couples and the funny situations the husbands would get themselves into, as well as having a lovable overweight character. The final episode featured a crossover cameo by the cast of Pavarchin.

The plot is set in the Forbidden Kingdom, a fictional remote Himalayan country. A Buddhist lama named Tensing takes his disciple, Prince Dil Bahadur, to the Valley of the Yeti to find healing plants that do not grow anywhere else. They find themselves ringed by the yetis just as they drink in the sights, but the matriarch saves them and says that the fast-dwindling yetis have lost their forebears’ unparalleled mental powers.

The lamas teach them to milk the goats so that they can feed their cubs, and it turns out that the local fountains are toxic. The beasts’ health improves once they start shunning the fountains, and in order to thank the strangers they give them the plants they have asked for.

Meanwhile, Alex Cold and his grandmother Kate, an ''International Geographic'' reporter, depart from Brazil for New York. He gives her the diamond eggs that his friend Nadia has found near the Amazon and tells her to raise money for the People of the Mist—the South American tribe that he bonded with in City of the Beasts—as well as for other Indios. Kate, who questions the diamonds’ value, shows them to Isaac Rosenblat, a New York jeweler who confirms their unparalleled worth; he has never seen like-sized stones. Six months later, the Diamond Foundation is set up with the help of Ludovic Leblanc, an anthropologist who is Kate's nemesis. Now tasked with writing about the Forbidden Kingdom, she takes Nadia and Alex with her despite her employer's misgivings.

At the same time, the world's second-richest man—who is called the Collector—pays a crime lord known as the Specialist to steal the kingdom's national treasure, a golden dragon with unrivaled magical skills. The Collector wants to use its gifts of prophecy to predict stock and make himself the world's richest man.

Soon after landing in Asia, Kate and her friends are caught up in a plot to kidnap indigenous girls. When Nadia, who is taken for a native, is captured along with her newfound friend Pema, Alex and Kate enlist the prince, his teacher, the kingdom's forces, and the yetis to track down the abductees.

After World War I, pilots Cary Lockwood (Richard Barthelmess), Shep Lambert (David Manners), Bill Talbot (John Mack Brown) and Francis (Elliott Nugent) band together in Paris. Feeling they have no future, the men are constantly drunk. One night, as they make the rounds of nightclubs, they meet Nikki (Helen Chandler), a wealthy but aimless woman, who they invite into their group. Later, when an American reporter named Frink (Walter Byron) makes a pass at Nikki, she shows no interest in him.

The ex-flyers move to Nikki's hotel where they continue drinking. Nikki is attracted to Cary and she tags along when Cary goes to the Père Lachaise Cemetery where he tells her the story of Héloïse and Abelard, star-crossed lovers who are buried there. When Nikki starts to cry, Cary is sympathetic until she announces that she now has names for her two turtles. With that, Cary suddenly gets angry and decides to leave for Portugal.

After learning of his plans, Nikki and the others, including Frink, follow him. On the train, Frink tries to force himself on Nikki but the other men come to her rescue. At a bullfight in Lisbon, Bill rashly leaps into the ring and is fatally gored. With Bill at the hospital, the others visit a carnival where outside a shooting gallery, Cary and Frink quarrel and Frink threatens to shoot Cary.

Without thinking, Francis shoots Frink while Shep is fatally wounded in the crossfire. Frightened, Francis disappears and the group is forever split asunder. Cary explains to Nikki that after the war, all they had left was their comradeship. She begs to stay with him.

Inside a heavily guarded facility, a group of young boys are given tattoos of bar codes on the backs of their shaved heads and are then trained in weapons, demolitions, unarmed combat, stamina, and strength to become globally operating professionally trained hitmen. And during current day, Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott) arrives home and is met at gunpoint by Agent 47. The two talk about 47's life as a professional hitman, raised and trained by a mysterious paramilitary group known simply as the Organization.

Three months prior, 47 (Timothy Olyphant) is completing a hit on a Nigerian warlord named Bwana Ovie, force-feeding a captured soldier with plastic explosives and using him as a human bomb to kill Ovie. In a subsequent change of plans, 47 is told by his Organization handler, Diana Burnwood, that he is to kill his next target, Russian President Mikhail Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen), publicly instead of privately. Agent 47 completes his mission by shooting the man in the head, but before he can leave Russia, he is contacted by his superiors. He is mystified when told the hit was a failure and that Belicoff survived the attack on his life. The Organization notifies him of a witness to the assassination and orders him to intercept and kill her. However, when 47 realizes she has never seen him before, he does not shoot her; instead, he narrowly avoids an assassination attempt on himself by another Agent and realizes he is being set up.

His employers send his location and identity to the FSB, but Diana secretly calls 47 and tips him off, revealing that Belicoff himself had ordered the hit. After escaping from his hotel, 47 intercepts Nika (Olga Kurylenko), Belicoff's mistress and the woman who supposedly witnessed his hit. He interrogates her and discovers that Belicoff had a double, who ordered the hit on the real Belicoff in order to take his place as the president of Russia. The Organization, hoping to gain influence with the new government, ordered 47 to kill Nika and then set him up be erased, to cover their tracks.

Nika and 47 are attacked by more Organization agents on a train, whom 47 fights and kills. Whittier then attempts to arrest 47 himself, only to be easily overpowered. Nika persuades 47 to let Whittier go free, and Whittier is forced to leave Russia by FSB officer Yuri Marklov (Robert Knepper), who is overseeing the manhunt, for interfering. 47 contacts his associate, CIA officer Carlton Smith, to offer him a deal: 47 will kill Udre Belicoff (Mikhail's brother and a wealthy arms dealer and human trafficker) in exchange for a favour. Smith informs 47 that Udre had been planning something with a German gunrunner named Price.

47 and Nika travel to Istanbul, where 47 abducts Price, poses as him to meet Udre at a club, and kills him, forcing Belicoff's double to attend Udre's public funeral. 47 kidnaps Marklov and forces him to order his own agents to disrupt the funeral and create a distraction while 47, disguised as a soldier, deals with the imposter's bodyguards and kills him before Whittier arrives with backup from Interpol to take him into custody. Smith delivers on his end of the deal and has his operatives intercept the convoy that is transporting 47 to the airport, allowing the hitman to escape.

Back in Whittier's home, 47 suggests Whittier go along with his plan: that he notify the police that he has killed (a fake) Agent 47, implying that Whittier will not survive if he refuses, and leaves. Nika is seen picking up an envelope containing the deed to a vineyard, a dream of hers to own. Agent 47 is watching her from afar, through the scope of a sniper rifle. Looking at the corpse of another Agent lying at his feet, he muses that he had warned him (meaning the Organization) not to touch her, and then walks away.

The book centers around a racist colonel, Wesley McCulloch, and his black pursuer, Troy Harmon. McCulloch and Harmon both originate from the modern era, the book opening with Harmon called in by a special military watchdog organization to investigate why McCulloch has been buying large quantities of gold.

The case worsens when it is discovered that McCulloch has murdered three people to cover his plans. The theft of a World War II-vintage Sten submachine gun and the plans for such also add to the mystery about what McCulloch is up to.

Before long, Harmon comes to the conclusion McCulloch has used a secret experimental time machine to try to change the outcome of the American Civil War, giving victory to the Confederacy through the introduction of the easily manufactured Sten gun. Harmon determines he must follow McCulloch into the past to bring justice. During the ensuing chase, Harmon discovers first-hand the prejudices of the people at the time.

The setting is contemporaneous with publication: the beginning of the twentieth century. Crawfurd grows up in Kirkcaple, by the North Sea, where he first encounters the antagonist, Laputa, performing a ritual on the beach. Crawfurd's father dies, and he goes to work as a shopkeeper in a place called Blaauwildebeestefontein.

Crawfurd comes into contact with a Portuguese man, Henriques, and again with Laputa, and he gradually learns of illegal diamond smuggling and of a planned rising of the native people of the region, including the Zulu people and the Swazi people, led by Laputa. Laputa's skill as a preacher allows him to inspire many tribes across the region to follow him, and he invokes the legend of Prester John and positions himself as the rightful heir and leader who can rise up against colonial rule. Crawfurd learns more about this after meeting Captain Arcoll, who leads the colonial army and police.

Using information learnt from having overheard the conversation of Laputa and Henriques, Crawfurd infiltrates the cave where the tribal leaders are gathering and witnesses Laputa commencing the rising, wearing the necklet of Prester John, which legitimises his leadership. Crawfurd is captured, but having managed to relay a message to Captain Arcoll, escapes during an ambush and steals the necklet from the hands of Henriques, who is trying to steal it for himself. After running all night, Crawfurd is climbing a ravine in the escarpment up to the plateau above the berg when he is captured again. But he manages first to hide the necklet, which is made of priceless rubies.

After being taken to Laputa's new base, Crawfurd escapes immediate punishment by offering Laputa his knowledge of the location of the necklet in exchange for sparing his life. Laputa, who needs the necklet in order to convince his followers, but has not told anyone of its loss, goes alone with Crawfurd to search for the necklet. In the ravine, Crawfurd narrowly escapes once again and steals Laputa's horse to take him to Arcoll's headquarters.

With Laputa separated from his army, Arcoll's forces are able to quell the leaderless uprising. Meanwhile, Crawfurd returns to the cave, where he finds the treacherous Henriques dead outside, having been strangled by Laputa. Entering the cave, Crawfurd meets Laputa, who by now knows that all his plans have failed. Laputa destroys a rock bridge giving access to the cave, and then commits suicide by jumping into an underground river chasm.

Crawfurd makes a daring escape by climbing a cascade up and out of the cave. He rejoins Arcoll and is instrumental in bringing about the disarmament of the native uprising and the subsequent peace. With Arcoll's help he is rewarded with a large portion of the treasure hidden in the cave and eventually returns to Scotland a rich man.

The novel opens in 1685 Scotland, with the 18 year old Andrew Garvald losing his way in the rain and seeking directions at a remote mansion where he hears Elspeth Blair, a girl of about 16, singing a stirring song. Continuing his journey across the moor he stumbles across the Sweet-Singers, a group of religious fanatics led by the zealot Muckle John Gib. When Elspeth rides up to recover one of her servants who has run away, matters take a violent turn and both Garvald and Gib are arrested by a passing troop of dragoons and thrown into Edinburgh’s Canongate Tollbooth. Elspeth secures Garvald’s release, and Muckle John is sentenced to transportation to the American plantations.

Some years later, Garvald sails to Virginia to look after his uncle’s tobacco-trading interests there. Finding fair trade impossible due to the illegal monopolies and violent actions of the English merchants, Garvald seeks the advice of the Governor, Francis Nicholson. Nicholson declares himself powerless to assist, and suggests that Garvald should use the same tactics himself. Garvald warns Nicholson that the white-settled area called the Tidewater is vulnerable to Indian attack, but is unable to persuade him to raise a militia.

Finding he has no option but to take matters into his own hands, Garvald seeks out Ninian Campbell, an adventurer he had first met in Scotland. He finds that Campbell, now known as Red Ringan, is an outlaw and leader of a band called the Free Companions. Ringan offers to help protect Garvald’s trade and, at one with him about the need to protect the Tidewater, co-opts Garvald into his plan to establish a covert militia. There are suggestions that there may be a white leader behind some of the Indian incursions.

Elspeth, now also in Virginia, is pursued by a youth called Charles Grey who is arrogantly offensive to Garvald. The two men fight a duel, with Garvald emerging the victor but sparing Grey’s life. At a dinner at the Governor’s, Nicholson quite unexpectedly announces that having won a large tract of unsettled land to the West in a wager, he intends to give it to Elspeth as a birthday present. He asks that she appoint a 'champion' who will travel to the mountains to retrieve a powder horn buried there in 1672, twenty years before, by an old hunter. Both Garvald and Grey step forward, much to Elspeth’s shame and horror. Garvald recognises that this fool’s errand will serve as cover for a reconnaissance to the Western mountains to check the strength of the Indian tribes and to find out who is leading them. Garvald and Ringan lead the party which includes Grey (his former arrogance now a thing of the past), Shalah, a sympathetic high-born Indian, and three of the local settlers.

As the group reaches the mountains, they narrowly avoid capture by a raiding party of hundreds of Cherokees heading down towards the Tidewater. There, in a very dangerous position, they run into Elspeth who has ill-advisedly ridden West in order to take a look at her birthday land. The party find the hidden horn and present it to Elspeth. Unable to retreat, they build a stockade, and are attacked.

Desperate to get word of the coming invasion back to the Tidewater, Garvald and Ringan leave the stockade and set off on foot. The pair are soon cornered, Ringan killed, and Garvald captured and tortured. Impressed with his courage, Garvald’s captors allow him the chance to save his life in single combat, from which he emerges victorious. When he returns to their camp he finds that Shalah has appeared and has taken charge: as a high-born Indian from a famous tribe he out-ranks all others.

Shalah guides Garvald though the mountains to the headquarters of the main Indian force, where Garvald confronts their charismatic leader – the religious maniac John Gib. He convinces Gib to lead his followers over the mountains, to seek a new home far to the West. Shalah follows, his kingly destiny being eventually to rule the Western peoples. Garvald returns to the Tidewater and marries Elspeth.

Dickson McCunn, a 60-year old retired grocery-store owner hosts a supper for two of his protégés: John 'Jaikie' Galt and Dougal Crombie. Jaikie is now an undergraduate at Cambridge University and a rugby international; Douglas is a journalist working for the Craw Press. The two are to take a walking holiday in the Canonry, in the district of Carrick.

Thomas Carlyle Craw, proprietor of the Craw Press, is an influential writer with a special interest in the central European state of Evallonia, supporting restoration of the monarchy after years of republican rule. He is an extreme recluse, and has leased the secluded Castle Gay from its English owner Lord Rynns.

Craw is abducted by students during a prank in which he is mistaken for another man, and is held at the very cottage where Jaikie and Dougal intend to stay. They agree to carry a letter to Craw's secretary at Castle Gay, Frederick Barbon, who can make sure that he remains hidden from the crowds of journalists who have arrived to cover an important local by-election. The friends find the gates to the Castle grounds barred, and they stumble across a journalist for a rival paper, Albert Tibbets, who is covering the story of Craw’s disappearance. They meet Alison Westwater, daughter of Lord Rynns; Jaikie admires her. With Alison's help they gain access only to be told by Barbon that Craw must stay away as there is a party of Evallonian monarchists who are desperate to talk to him: Prince Odalchini, Count Casimir Muresco and Professor Jagon. They want Craw to ensure that the British government will support the overthrow of the Evallonian republicans and the ascent of their candidate Prince John to a restored throne. Unable to make them understand that Craw has no power to do any such thing, Dougal brings Dickson McCunn over to talk "practical common sense". Jaikie takes Craw on a walking tour, to ensure he remains hidden.

Tibbets is convinced he has a scoop when he is admitted to the castle and gains an interview with Craw - without realising that his interviewee is in fact McCunn. He publishes his article the next day, ''"Mr Craw Speaks to the World"'', in which he has Craw repudiating all his long-held principles.

Jaikie searches for Sigsimund Allins, a rogue employee of Craw’s who has accepted a payment from the monarchists for an introduction to Craw, and a larger one from the republicans who hope to create a scandal by catching the monarchists colluding with a magnate of the British press. Jaike pretends to be drunk and 'accidentally' lets slip that the day of the by-election would be a good opportunity to catch Craw conspiring in Castle Gay, as most of the castle staff will be absent.

The monarchists, now joined by Prince John himself, are horrified to hear that their enemies are at hand, and especially by the presence of the communist leader Anton Mastrovin. They leave immediately for London. Prince John is helped by McCunn - who has developed strong personal loyalties - to escape by boat. As the prince departs, he give McCunn a ring and McCunn vows that "if ever you have need of me, a word will bring me across the world".

Mastrovin and his men arrive at the castle and demand to see Craw. They expect to find him plotting with the prince and monarchists but instead find him in his study innocently dictating letters. They pull out guns, but are disconcerted when McCunn walks in, in his matter-of-fact way, followed by the local policeman. McCunn offers to allow them to leave - without their guns - or else face a charge of hamesuchen. They comply.

Jaikie and Alison reluctantly part, but not before he has vowed "to meet again … often … always" and she has called him "Dear Jaikie". He realises that he has found something precious, and that he is no longer alone.

While on his walking tour Jaikie meets Randal Glynde - now proprietor of the Cirque Doré - who encourages him to visit Evallonia, and arranges for him to meet one of the leading monarchists, Prince Odalchini, at his castle 'The House of the Four Winds'. On the way he meets Count Paul 'Ashie' Jovian, a friend from Cambridge who is now a leader of the youth group Juventus. Juventus, like the monarchists, wants to overthrow the corrupt and unpopular government, but many of its leaders see Prince John as a puppet of his conservative backers. After meeting Prince Odalchini, Jaikie is captured by Juventus who have been picketing the castle.

Meanwhile, in Unnutz, Alison stumbles across a cottage in the woods and sees Prince John disguised as a woodcutter, and his republican enemy, Mastrovin, lurking in the village. She receives a letter from Jaikie asking her to come to Evallonia. Janet and Archie Roylance arrive from Geneva and agree to travel with her. Realising that Prince John is in deadly peril they agree that he should travel with Randal Glyde, disguised as a member of the Cirque Doré.

Jaikie is asked by Ashie to visit Prince Odalchini again, this time covertly, to open a dialogue with the monarchists. The visit has to be kept secret from the other leaders of Juventus, particularly Countess Araminta Troyos who is a powerful voice in the movement.

An old friend of Jaikie's, the journalist Dougal Crombie, interviews Ashie and relays details of the situation in Evallonia to Dickson McCunn who is recuperating in Germany. On hearing that Prince John is in peril, McCunn decides that he has to travel to Evallonia to assist, remembering the vow that he had made to the prince in ''Castle Gay''. He resolves as a first step to visit Prince Odalchini.

Unable to gain access to the castle because of the Juventus picketers, McCunn is just leaving when his car narrowly avoids a collision with another vehicle containing Archie, Janet and Alison. They join forces and gain entrance to the castle through the cellars. They find that Jaikie is with Prince Odalchini, and they discuss how to restore Prince John to his rightful throne. Although Prince John would be supported as king by most of the Juventus rank-and-file, the Juventus leaders' deep distrust of the prince's conservative backers would probably result in their immediately instructing their followers to remove him.

McCunn suggests a ruse: the monarchists should pretend to switch their support to a stalking horse candidate. He will quickly be removed by Juventus, who will then switch their allegiance to Prince John once he is no longer apparently supported by his hated backers. McCunn suggests that he could himself play the stalking horse role, impersonating the elderly Archduke Hadrian, the late king's brother who is currently living quietly in France.

Mastrovin captures Jaikie along with Archie, Alison and Janet, and takes them to his headquarters. Randal arranges for the Cirque Doré to pass by, and Jaikie escapes from a first-floor window onto the back of an elephant.

The local press announces that Hadrian is on his way from France to take the throne. Although the Juventus rank-and-file are pleased, Countess Araminta is not, and she directs her followers that Hadrian be stopped. Jaikie persuades her to call a halt, and to provide some men to help rescue Archie, Janet and Alison. In the resultant fracas Mastrovin is shot dead, Countess Araminta becomes attracted to Prince John, believing that he saved her life, and Alison realises that she loves Jaikie.

The counterfeit Archduke (McCunn) is smuggled out of Evallonia just before his intended coronation on the pretence that he is too old and frail to go through with it.

Sir Edward Leithen is diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis and given a year to live. While he is deciding how to spend his remaining days, an American associate, John S. Blenkiron, requests help to find his niece's husband, Francis Galliard, who has disappeared from his very successful financial career in New York and fled to Canada.

Leithen follows Galliard to Quebec. During this he finds a mountain meadow he had seen on a trip thirty years earlier and which has stayed in his memory since.

Leithen finds Galliard and nurses him back to health. He then decides to stay with some Indians and help them.

The plot, a variation on ''The Ransom of Red Chief'', revolves around Sheila Farlaine (Clark), the teenaged daughter of Shakespearean tragedian Michael Farlaine (Sinclair), who is kidnapped by elderly crook Harry Denton (Rigby) when it's suggested he no longer has what it takes to be a master criminal.

When Harry starts having second thoughts about the caper, Sheila - tired of playing second fiddle to her egotistical father's career - becomes the mastermind of the plot and resists every effort made by Harry's grandson Jack (Hanley) to return her home before things get serious. However, in this strange scenario Sheila wants to be kidnapped, as it gives her the opportunity to act grown up and she thinks her father will at last take some interest. He meanwhile embraces the role of worried parent for whom "the show must go on" and thrives on the newspaper publicity. Sheila begins to take a romantic interest in Jack, and despite her only being 15 (and three-quarters), she blackmails him into taking her out to clubs and casinos, wining, dining and dancing. Jack's girlfriend is less than happy when she discovers this.

Then Sheila's friend Jimmy (Newley) decides that he too wants to be "kidnapped" and becomes a general nuisance to one and all.

In 1992, Laren Sims is a single mother living in Destin, North Carolina with her parents and young daughter Haylei. Outgoing and free-spirited, with a reputation of being a troublemaker and having sociopathic tendencies to shamelessly lie, cheat, and steal without any guilt about her actions, Laren cannot shake off her bad reputation or break free of her quick and easy life of crime. Unable to afford Christmas presents, she buys them with a stolen credit card. She is caught and sentenced to 90 days in a maximum security prison.

Some months later, Laren continues to get off on the "rush" of stealing. During a shopping outing at a local mall, Laren steals items from a clothing store when she takes her daughter with her to show her the art of stealing. Rather than return to prison when she is found stealing a second time, she goes on the run, but decides to take her daughter with her, unable to stand being apart from her. Laren steals a car with her daughter and travels to another town in Tennessee. There she steals another car from a used car lot when she leaves a stolen credit card with the dealer while allegedly taking it for a test drive. Mother and daughter work their way across the country, supporting themselves by passing bad checks and using stolen credit cards while frequently stealing license plates from other cars in order to escape detection from the authorities.

In 1995, Laren adopts the identity of a diner waitress she meets in rural Texas by stealing her driver's license out of her locker. She and Haylei ultimately arrive in Las Vegas, where Laren applies for a job with Lucas McKenzie, a wealthy alcoholic attorney and ranch owner, under the name of Allison. The two fall into a toxic co-dependent relationship and eventually get married a year later. Laren embezzles $90,000 from her husband's business account and he is subsequently disbarred for reasons not made clear.

In 2001, in an uncharacteristic moment of honesty, Laren reveals to Lucas where she is actually from and her past problems. Lucas uses this information to find out her actual name and her sordid past. From this point on, Lucas threatens to turn her in to the authorities if she refuses to cooperate with him in helping more of his shady business ventures. In a state of fear, Laren sends Haylei away to school and hires a college student named Kristin to help her with the horses on Lucas' ranch. The two become very close (although never specified, a lesbian relationship between them is implied), to the dismay of both Lucas and Haylei. As their relationship disintegrates and the possibility of discovery grows, Laren decides to poison her spouse with Kristin's assistance.

One evening, Laren approaches Lucas in his hotel room during a conference where she poisons him. Laren and Kristin then remove the body from the hotel and bury it under a bridge spanning a shallow creek, where it is eventually found.

Laren escapes with Haylei and leaves behind Kristin to shoulder the blame. Returning to Destin, she encourages her daughter to contact her grandparents and return to them, then surrenders to the police and eventually commits suicide by hanging herself in her jail cell.

An elderly woman, Fern (Jeanette Miller), wakes up her girlfriend Irma (Jennie Ventriss). As they get ready to go to a bridge game, a young girl (Eden Sher) rides a scooter down a desert road. Irma makes a lime Jell-O dessert, which Fern is rude about. As Irma drives down the road on their way to the game, Fern berates her for driving too fast. They start arguing and their truck hits the young girl on the scooter. Fern gets out of the truck, announces that the girl is dead, and starts shouting at Irma, insisting that she get out and have a look. Irma locks the truck doors. Fern continues shouting and starts smashing the truck headlights, while Irma refuses to speak or open the doors. Fern threatens to end their 45-year relationship, and when she receives no answer, she takes her ring from her ring finger, throws it at the truck, and walks off down the road. After some time, Irma opens the truck windows and smiles to herself.

The T.R.A.G. team infiltrate the Togusa building, which has been taken over by terrorists, and they attempt to take it back, as well as rescuing Prof. Kevin Howard, an important scientist who is a hostage of the terrorists.

David is frustrated that no one will publish his book. Lucy makes a wishing dragon, David's names it "G'reth" which Gadzooks his special dragon wrote down.

Liz offers to drive David to campus and David tells Liz that he thinks Sophie is going to allow him to move in with her. Dr. Bergstrom gives David an assignment on dragons and says the contest prize is a trip to the Arctic. Dr. Bergstrom gives him a talisman to hold and says it will show him his true path. David sees Gadzooks write the name "Lorel."

Later, Lucy, having wished for snow on G'reth, is making a snowman which looks somewhat like a bear. She comes in and looks in the freezer. Feeling curious, David finds Gruffen on a small container in the freezer and tries to pick him up, but Gruffen gets stuck on David's hands. Liz saves Gruffen from breaking just in time and shows David what is in the box—a snowball. It contains auma from Gawain's fire tear, which Liz uses to give life to her special dragons, but she simply tells David that she kept it as a memory like David's teddy bear.

David goes up to his room and falls asleep dreaming about the Arctic. When a polar bear walks up to him he hears "You have email!"—his computer alerts him about a message from Zanna, a goth girl in his class. She comes over later while Liz and Lucy are at the Craft Fair and they go up to the Dragons' Den. Zanna is mesmerized by a bronze clay egg. Her touch quickens the egg which makes the dragon inside it start growing. David then makes a wish to find Gawain's fire tear, which calls Gwilanna. Gretel, Gwilanna's dragon, puts David under a spell and goes with David to a publishing meeting which gets his Snigger book published. At home Gwillana says that Liz is having a baby that Zanna kindled; she says it's the first boy in 900 years. Lucy sees Dr. Bergstrom as Thoran, a polar bear. David tries to stand up to Gwilanna but she ends up trapping him under the floor boards until he breaks free using the Tooth of Ragnar—a tooth that came from one of the first polar bears.

Liz has the baby, but the baby is actually a dragon that Gwilanna enchants. When Zanna bursts in she is branded with a mark that is a blessing and a curse. David goes to the baby dragon and Zanna reveals that she is a sibyl and has the mark of Oomara. Gretel becomes her dragon. The baby flies to Bergstrom and the party of three follow not far behind. In Bergstrom's office, Zanna finds the baby and decides to name him Grockle, but he hardens back to stone after being born without fire. David talks to Bergstrom revealing the full story of Gawain, and Grockle turns to stone like Gawain.

After the clean up, David's first girlfriend Sophie moves to Africa and breaks up with David. He tries to find Zanna, thinking she is not going to the Arctic. He also begins writing a new book. When Bergstrom comes to pick him up for the Arctic trip, David sees an extra bag and reads the tag which says "Suzanna M." Zanna comes out of the car and she and David begin a relationship.

Buchan's novel opens with the narrator, Sir Edward Leithen, being introduced at a house party to the brilliant physicist and mathematician professor Moe. Moe has been working on a new theory of time, and believes he has found a way of enabling people to see, as if through a 'gap in the curtain', details of a future event. He enlists several of the house party guests into an experiment. For several days, each has to apply his whole concentration to anticipate what will be printed on a chosen page of ''The Times'' newspaper exactly one year hence. The subjects' efforts are to be supported by mental and physical preparation and by the taking of an unspecified drug.

The professor gathers his subjects together and urges them to 'turn their eyes inwardly' as they stare at a blank sheet of paper. He explains that they will each see some text which will appear in that future copy of ''The Times''. Arnold Tavenger, a city magnate, sees a note of a great combine of all the michelite producing interests of the world; David Mayot MP sees a report of a speech in the House by a member who, completely unexpectedly, has become prime minister; Reginald Daker sees his name as a member of an archaeological expedition to the Yucatán; and Sir Robert Goodeve and Captain Charles Ottery both read the announcements of their own deaths. The effort of bringing this about proves too much for Moe and he dies on the spot.

The remaining chapters of the book follow the fortunes of the experimental subjects over the next 12 months. In each case the prediction comes true, though in an unexpected way. After a year of anticipation, Charles Ottery discovers that, as a result of a publishing error, the report he took to be of his own death is in fact a report of the death of another man of the same name.

Guy Fletcher is an actor who overhears a builder telling a joke in his local pub about his mother (although very few people know that he is her son), a famous and much loved actress called Selina Moore, who died in a plane accident in France. The joke was "Why is Selina Moore like Ferrero Rocher? Because they both came out of France in a box." This was originally a real joke about Princess Diana's death, a fact which is mentioned in the book.

The next day he wonders where jokes come from and, despite being discouraged by his agent Sylvie, goes on a mission to track down the joke. On the way, he meets a variety of people, most importantly a woman called Sally, with whom he falls in love. After investigating various dead-ends and multiple paths that the joke has followed, he is noticed by a mysterious company, led by a man called Rupert Liddy, who has a perfect memory. This company then attempt to stop Guy by using characters from jokes (e.g. an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman), and stereotypes of character groups. Eventually, they frame him for his neighbor's murder, at which point Guy goes into hiding.

He goes back to Sally, believing her to be the last chance he has of finding out what was going on. However, when he gets there, her house is blown up. Sally herself is not in, but her mother, who has elephantiasis, is. Sally decides to go with Guy to track down the joke. His only lead is a company called Sphinx, that apparently create vacuum cleaners, as that was where he ended one of the trails of the joke. He tries to track down Sphinx, but cannot, and when he rings their number is left holding for an hour, before being redirected.

At another attempt, he plots where he traced the joke on a map with three of the trails that he followed, and found they crossed near the coast of Suffolk. They travel there, stopping in an abandoned fairground overnight to sleep, and end up having sex. After investigating various towns in the area, they stop at a village called Kelford. As they investigate, they find that everyone there is almost completely humourless, and that it has something to do with a small island just off the coast. At night, they steal a boat and travel there. They soon get captured and brought to speak with Rupert Liddy. He puts them in cells and, during a long speech about jokes, what makes a joke funny, and why they are essential, reveals that Sphinx are set up to create and distribute jokes so that people do not take things, like politics, too seriously. He also explains that their identity must be kept secret because if someone found out that jokes were created by a company, people wouldn't find them funny any more.

Rupert then tortures Guy, to find out who sent him and who else knows he is there, by tickling his foot with a feather. He then places Guy and Sally in a cell together that fills up with poisonous gas. There is a light bulb in the room that is switched on, and turns off when there is a fatal level of gas in the room. Guy and Sally breathe in the gas and go unconscious.

They then wake up on a small boat, and knock the captain unconscious. It is revealed that the light bulb in the gas chamber was broken, turning off too early, and so the gas had been turned off before it became fatal. The light bulb had not been repaired by maintenance because they were short staffed, causing Mr. Liddy to shout out the punchline of the book 'How many top-secret government technicians does it take to change a light bulb?'

In the penultimate chapter of the book, it clumsily describes how Guy and Sally went to France and started a new life, written as if being spoken by someone who is badly describing a joke. At the end, when this mystery narrator has realised he has ruined the joke, they decide to start again, and the final words are the same as the first ones.

There are a total of 13 chapters in the story. In each chapter, the player has to accomplish a primary goal in order to proceed to the next chapter. The player may concurrently accept some secondary missions as well and complete them in any chapter before the finale.

Fusu, the Crown Prince of the Qin Empire, is ordered to commit suicide according to an imperial decree by his father, the First Emperor. General Meng Tian suspects something is wrong with the order and stops Fusu. Fusu flees from Shangjun with Meng Tian's help and arrives in the nearby Zhaocun Village. He makes a long and perilous journey back to the capital, Xianyang, to uncover the truth. Fusu is shocked to hear that his father had died and that his youngest brother, Huhai, has ascended the throne as the Second Emperor. He meets his childhood friend, General Huan Feng, and learns that there is something fishy about his father's death. He decides to enter his father's tomb to investigate.

Fusu seeks help from Xiao Qi, a craftsman well-versed in the techniques of laying traps. Xiao Qi sends his apprentice, Jing Wuji, to accompany Fusu on his quest. They need to find Tian Gang, an expert who was involved in the construction of the tomb, to find out how to enter the tomb. Fusu learns from Tian Gang that he needs to be equipped with two items before entering the tomb: a Gold Toad Pearl to neutralise the poisonous vapour in the tomb; one of seven magical swords (Ou Yezi's five masterpieces and the Gan Jiang and Mo Ye swords) to destroy the Dark Alloy Gate in the tomb. Fusu finds the items after a series of adventures around China. He navigates his way through the labyrinthine tomb, fights some terracotta soldiers in the process, and finally reaches the inner chamber where the First Emperor is buried. He examines his father's body and is shocked to discover that his father was strangled to death and had been poisoned over a long period of time.

After leaving the tomb, Fusu meets Fang Zhong, who tells him that rebellions have erupted all over the Qin Empire due to the tyranny of the Second Emperor. He decides to help the rebels, but feels disheartened after witnessing how the internal conflict between the rebel forces led by Chen Sheng and others resulted in their failure and destruction. Upon hearing that Liu Bang, whom he met earlier, had also rebelled and formed his own army, he joins Liu and helps him recapture Fengxian County from a traitor. Later, he also persuades his childhood friend, Li You, the Qin general defending Sanchuan Prefecture, to surrender to Liu Bang. In the meantime, Li You's father, the Prime Minister Li Si, is framed for treason and imprisoned by Zhao Gao, an evil eunuch who has been manipulating the Second Emperor. With help from Huan Feng, Fusu and Li You break into the prison to save Li Si. However, they fail in their attempt when Huan Feng, who is being controlled by Zhao Gao's magic, betrays them and lures them into a trap. They manage to escape from the prison after Fusu defeats and reluctantly kills Huan Feng.

Fusu travels to Julu to meet Xiang Yu and update himself on the progress of the rebel forces. Xiang Yu has just emerged victorious in the Battle of Julu against the Qin army led by Zhang Han. He orders all the 200,000 prisoners-of-war to be buried alive as a sacrifice to his uncle, Xiang Liang, who was killed in an earlier battle against Qin forces. Disappointed by Xiang Yu's barbaric actions and ill-disciplined army, Fusu leaves Julu and goes to join Liu Bang, whom he feels is a better leader as compared to Xiang. He draws the comparison between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu to that between himself and his father. In his final mission in helping Liu Bang, he infiltrates Wancheng and convinces the Qin governor to surrender to the rebels.

Fusu leaves Liu Bang and goes to the Epang Palace to confront the Second Emperor. He arrives too late because Zhao Gao had already sent assassins to kill Huhai. Before dying, Huhai confesses to Fusu that he abetted Zhao Gao in murdering the First Emperor and blames Zhao for the Qin Empire's downfall. In the final chapter, Fusu breaks into Zhao Gao's underground palace and kills him in revenge. There are many endings to the game. The ending the player gets depends on the quests completed in the game.

María Hernández is a young, humble, uneducated dreamer, who lives with her godmother Cacilda on the outskirts of Mexico City and works as a picker of recyclable material in a landfill. On the day that María turns 15, her godmother dies, who on her deathbed, asks Father Honorio to find a place where her goddaughter can work and live. Maria is welcomed by businessman Fernando De la Vega, one of the most influential and richest men in the country. He teaches María manners and welcomes her as a family member, although his wife Victoria and Carlota, one of the household's maids, despise María upon meeting her.

Luis Fernando, the eldest son of the De la Vega family, is dumped by his girlfriend Brenda, and swears not to become involved emotionally with women, but to toy with them. He initially engages with María for this purpose, but ends up falling in love with her. Soraya Montenegro, the boastful and proud niece of Victoria, is in love with Luis Fernando and wants to marry him. She despises María and calls her "marginal".

María is slowly gaining the friendship and confidence of the residents and employees of the mansion, including Victoria, who changes her attitude towards María, Lupe, the housekeeper, and Vladimir and Vanessa, the younger children of the De la Vega family. Soraya takes advantage of a drunk Luis Fernando, takes him to bed and brings a fake pregnancy test, which forces him to marry her, even though he loves María. In order to forget Luis Fernando, María starts dating Vladimir. She also starts taking etiquette classes from Doña Caro, a teacher hired especially by Don Fernando to teach María. Luis Fernando also undergoes a personality transformation: he becomes more mature and stops drinking and starts working in his father's company. He starts to suspect Soraya is not pregnant, so she brings another pregnancy test. Soraya now claims that she suffered a miscarriage.

Soraya, who goes to live in the mansion of the De la Vega's with her nanny Calixta, who has taken care of her since she was a child, constantly fights with María and wants to kill her. Calixta, who is also a healer, helps her put poisonous weeds in María's water. María gets sick and is sent to the hospital, where she discovers the cause of the disease. Calixta reveals to Soraya that she is her real mother. Hateful, Soraya kicks her out of the mansion. Osvaldo, Soraya's lover, discovers the evil plan and threatens her; if she did not give him money, he would tell. In a violent fight, Soraya tries to kill him and ends up falling from the window of an apartment and is presumed dead. Soon Luis Fernando and Maria plan to get married, but a jealous Vladimir chooses not to attend the wedding.

During their marriage, Luis Fernando starts to suspect that María and his brother are lovers. When Vladimir goes to the mansion to apologize to María for not having appeared at her wedding, Luis Fernando sees them embracing. This incident creates a misunderstanding, and he distances himself from his brother and his wife. Meanwhile, the rest of the De la Vega family moves temporarily to Spain, leaving María alone in the house. She becomes pregnant and finds support and friendship in Lupe, the housekeeper. Unfortunately, during her pregnancy, she is plagued with bipolar disorder and fever. Moments before having the baby, Luis Fernando files for divorce from María, who desperately leaves the mansion. María then gives birth to her son in a hospital and names him Fernando. She is discharged with the baby and wanders mentally unbalanced in the streets with the baby in her arms. Unintentionally, she gives him to a woman by the name Agripina.

Luis Fernando finds María in a mental hospital, and is told that their son died. Unsure of what to do, Luis Fernando adopts a baby girl named María de los Ángeles, nicknamed 'Tita' (Veronica's biological daughter). María decides to search for her lost son and leaves Luis Fernando with Tita almost every day. Simultaneously, Lupe hires Penélope, her goddaughter, to take care of Tita. Penélope, however, is sly and deceitful. She falls in love with Luis Fernando and they become lovers. María eventually discovers the truth and fires Penélope and files for a divorce from Luis Fernando. However, he apologizes to María and she accepts.

Fifteen years pass, and Fernando (Nando), now fifteen years old, works as a lottery vendor. One night, Agripina has an accident and is admitted to a hospital. In order to buy medicine for his mother, Nando is convinced by a friend to steal money from a rich house. Unknowingly, he robs the house of María and is caught by her and Luis Fernando, who arrives and points a gun at him. Nando goes on to explain that he was stealing because he needed the money to buy medicine for his mother, who is in the hospital due to an accident. Luis Fernando refuses to believe him, and takes the boy to the police station, following his arrest. María pleads with her husband to let Nando free, after which he reluctantly accepts. She later returns to the hospital and recognizes Agripina, who, on the other hand, does not remember her. She says she is very worried about Nando, so María says that she hired him to work in her house.

María begins to support her son, all the while hiding the truth from him. Tita, now fifteen, thinks Nando is her mother's lover, and tries hard to find ways to expose them. Penélope is now married to José María Cano "Papacito", a good-for-nothing rascal. The two coincidentally live in the same apartment as Nando, and blackmail María that they will tell Tita that she was adopted and that Nando is her lover to everyone, if she doesn't give them money in exchange for silence. Maria is finally fed up with Tita's constant misconceptions and reveals to her that Nando is her lost son.

After María tells Nando that he is her son, he comes to live with the De la Vega family. Luis Fernando, still unaware that he is his son, believes that María took her lover into his own home and grabs his gun and attempts to kill him. After the bullet is released from his gun, María screams that Nando is their son. She consequently makes up with her husband and reunites Nando with his father. Penélope and José María are arrested for their crimes.

Soraya fully recovers from her accident fourteen years prior and lives in Houston, Texas, United States. She marries the widowed billionaire Oscar Montalbán, whose seventeen-year-old daughter Alicia is disabled. She murders him and inherits all his wealth, but has to take care of Alicia. Soraya returns to Mexico, ready to get revenge on María and the De la Vega family. At first, she shows remorse for everything she did, trying to convince the family. She meets and seduces Nando, affects him in a bad way and incites him against his parents.

Nando starts visiting Soraya's mansion just to get drunk and serve as a sexual object. In the mansion, Nando meets Alicia and her governess Esperanza, who advise him to stop coming and go home. María suspects that Soraya has not changed and is just using Nando. Nando finds Soraya kissing with a man called Aldo and leaves her. Soraya gets depressed and realizes that her former lover is now in love with Alicia and forbids her to see him.

In an attempt to reconcile with Nando, Soraya arranges a party and invites him. Nando goes to see Alicia and Soraya, who has a crisis of psychopathy, beats her, hits Esperanza against the wall and cuts Nando with a pair of scissors. Alicia is saved by Aldo, and Nando goes to a hospital, where he is admitted. María reported Soraya but she pretends to be innocent. With the idea of revenge, Soraya finds her mother, Calixta. Calixta, too poor and ill, lives as a beggar, and recognizes her daughter. Feeling hatred towards her own mother, she pushes Calixta, who hits her head and dies.

Initially, Nando is accused of the crime, but María takes the blame and is convicted and imprisoned in a women's jail, where she meets with Penélope. While in prison, Maria is humiliated and assaulted by inmates and Rosenda, one of the prison guards. A big fire happens after Rosenda was fired for assaulting Gracia. María saves Penélope but disappears in the flames. Maria is now presumed dead. Penélope, after being saved by María, regrets all the wrong she has done and decides to pursue a new life after being released from jail. Days later, Dr. Daniel Ordóñez finds María wandering the streets without memory and takes her home, where she works as a nanny for his two children.

Cecilia, who is in love with Daniel, confronts María. After finding out she was poisoning his daughter to blame María, Daniel throws Cecilia out of the house. After weeks working in Daniel's house, the director of the prison informs that María is alive and possibly without memory.

Nando and his father get excited and decide to seek her through the streets, but Agripina has a heart attack and they take her to the hospital, where they are reunited with María. After it was revealed that she killed Oscar Montalbán and Dr. Mejia, Soraya flees from the police, encounters María and creates a plan to kill her. She disguises herself as a nurse and tells her that she is a friend of the De la Vega family and that Tita is ill and takes her to her cabin. Esperanza and Alicia observe and contact the De la Vega family.

Agripina survives her heart attack. In the cabin, Soraya pushes María during a fight, against a wall of a fireplace. Upon awaking, she remembers everything and a tearful Soraya confesses her crimes, going completely insane. With a pistol in hand, Soraya throws petrol around the cabin. Meanwhile, Soraya's maid reveals where Soraya is, and Luis Fernando and the police go to the cabin. Soraya, rather preferring death over going back to jail, throws a lit match on the ground, setting the cabin alight.

Luis Fernando saves María, who tries to save Soraya, who herself is trapped in the flames and burns to death. Two months later, Luis Fernando and María celebrate a happy new life with their children. Gracia, María's friend from prison, is now working as the nanny to Daniel's children. Urbano and Fellipa get together, while Agripina marries Veracruz. Nando dates Alicia, who undergoes surgery and is able to walk, and Tita dates Aldo. María reveals she is pregnant again.

Polly Pocket and her four friends get to be part of their favorite game show, 'Roll Like That', which puts teams of five through several challenges to win money for the charity of their choice.

As the challenges begin, however, Polly learns that her father is engaged to a woman named Lorelai, who secretly wants to get Polly out of the way. Polly and her friends also have to try to get past the scheming Beth, who teams up with Lorelai to get Polly to be sent to boarding school.

Faced with the prospect of losing everything she loves, her friends, family, and home, Polly decides to make this weekend the best ever.

Angie Albright starts college in a town far away from home and her deeply religious mother. Her college roommate likes to indulge in smoking weed, and in trying to escape that, Angie finds a job as a babysitter. The couple who live on the outlying farm of Stanton have a son named Sam who is quiet and loves to wear a cowboy outfit, even when sleeping. The couple seems sweet and charming and they offer Angie a job, asking if she is free to babysit Sam the following Saturday night. Angie accepts

She also meets a guy named Rick who she has frequent run-ins with around the campus. On the day of the night that Angie has to babysit, her car quits unexpectedly. Rick offers to fix Angie's car and gives her a ride to the couple's house. As soon as the couple leaves, Angie is disturbed by a series of mysterious phone calls. The prank caller turns out to be a priest who came to kill Sam after knowing Sam's secret, but he is killed by the couple. Sam is then revealed to have two small horns on his head, which he uses the cowboy costume to cover, and is revealed to be the son of the devil. The couple then reveal that they trap young females as Sam only eats human female flesh. The husband, Jim Stanton, then brings back a sedated girl to his tool shed, where he also ties up Angie.

Angie watches in horror and attempts to escape while Stan is precisely marking the other girl for slaughtering. Angie eventually escapes, killing the couple in the process, and injures Sam. When she wakes up in the hospital, the cops inform her that there was no body of a child, meaning Sam wasn't dead.

The cartoon begins with an exterior shot of an elementary school classroom. Through the windows, schoolchildren are visible at their desks. They are learning arithmetic by rote. The main character, Ralph Phillips, is bored with this lesson; on seeing a bird outside, he imagines that he is free to use his arms and legs to propel himself through the air.

Miss Wallace interrupts this daydream and sends Ralph to the blackboard to add a column of numbers. He is so intimidated by the problem, he fantasizes that the numbers come to life and laugh at him. He appears as a chalk drawing on the blackboard, sneaks toward the numbers and removes the line above where the sum should be; the numbers (having no support) collapse. A 5 suddenly stands up, using a 4 as a sword and Ralph fights it using the line as a weapon. Ralph sticks the line into the 5, defeating it. The other numbers get up and give chase. Ralph takes the capital D and Y from the alphabet row above and uses them to make a bow and arrow; he fires at an 8, destroying it. He then takes the dot from both the lowercase i and j and loads them into the i. He then uses the i as a weapon similar to a shotgun.

Miss Wallace brings Ralph back to reality and sends him out to mail a letter. He responds by becoming a Pony Express courier who braves a horde of Indians on what becomes his desert journey.

Back in the classroom, he finds the geography lesson tedious until the sight of a fish in an aquarium triggers his next daydream — as a deep-sea diver, without gear, who kills a shark which is guarding an immobilized submarine. He then lifts the submarine, allowing it to float freely to safety (on board is Miss Wallace dressed as a nurse; she holds up a sign reading, "Oh, thank you, thank you, Ralph!"). As Ralph is acknowledging this, an octopus tentacle grabs him around his throat; this turns out to be Miss Wallace escorting him by his shirt into the corner, for not paying attention during class.

This, however, does not stop him from turning the classroom into a boxing ring where he knocks out the champ. As he is celebrating this, the scene segues back into the classroom, where the boxing ring bell turns out to be the classroom bell. The children have all left for the day and Miss Wallace tells Ralph he may go too. As he is walking from the room, Ralph imagines himself as a striding Douglas MacArthur and repeats the general's most famous line: "I shall return."

The novel begins with Percy dreaming about Grover being hunted by a monster. He wakes on the last day of his 7th-grade year, a peaceful year at Meriwether College Prep. There he has become friends with Tyson, a homeless child that the school has taken on as a form of charity. In gym class, during a game of dodgeball, Percy is attacked by a gang of Laestrygonians but is saved by Tyson and Annabeth, who was on her way back to Camp Half-Blood after having dreams about the camp in danger. The three take a magical taxi driven by the Graeae to Long Island. Upon reaching the camp, they see a group of campers led by Clarisse LaRue battling a pair of Colchis bulls. Tyson is granted permission to move past the camp's boundary to save Percy once again. It is revealed that he is a baby Cyclops and a half-brother of Percy, as he is also a son of Poseidon. An unknown enemy has weakened the protective walls of Camp Half-Blood by poisoning the tree of the demigod Thalia, leaving the campers vulnerable to future monster attacks. Camp counselor Chiron is accused of poisoning the tree and is fired. Before leaving, Chiron notes that only the Golden Fleece could save the camp. Shortly thereafter, Stymphalian birds attack during the chariot races, but Percy and Annabeth distract them with Chiron's boombox and Dean Martin's "Volare", enabling the Apollo campers to shoot them down.

Due to his charm and skill with a sword, Tantalus becomes the new camp counselor. As a reward for winning the chariot race, Tantalus sends Clarisse LaRue to find the Golden Fleece and forbids anyone else from leaving camp without his permission. After having a talk with the god Hermes about the fate of his son Luke, Percy leaves camp with Annabeth and Tyson to find Grover. With the help of the hippocampus that Tyson names Rainbow, the trio reach the ''Princess Andromeda'', a cruise ship filled with monsters and demigods that allied with the titan Kronos. On the ship, they are captured by Luke Castellan and learn that he is working to revive Kronos. The trio narrowly escapes on an emergency lifeboat and takes shelter in a hideout that Annabeth, Thalia, and Luke built as children. There, a hydra finds and attacks them, but they are saved by Clarisse on her ship, the ''CSS Birmingham.''

Annabeth, Percy, and Tyson join Clarisse's quest and journey to the Bermuda Triangle (also known as the Sea of Monsters). To enter the Sea of Monsters, the ship tries to pass between Charybdis and Scylla, who attack and destroy it. Clarisse gets separated from the others while Tyson is killed in the explosion so Percy and Annabeth board a lifeboat and head to the nearest island. Like Odysseus, after traveling through the narrow strait that Charybdis and Scylla guarded, the two land on the island of the witch-queen Circe. Realizing that she has turned dozens of men into guinea pigs, they escape on the famous pirate's ship ''Queen Anne's Revenge'' which Percy can control, while leaving Blackbeard and his crew to deal with Circe. Percy and Annabeth pass the Sirens, and Annabeth confesses her insecurities to Percy.

They reach the island of Percy's half-brother, the cyclops Polyphemus where they discover that he has captured Clarisse. Before journeying to the center of the island, Percy and Annabeth meet Grover pretending to be a female cyclops to trick Polyphemus into not eating him. Tyson arrives to help as well, having been rescued by Rainbow from the ''Birmingham's'' wreckage. They find the Golden Fleece, but Polyphemus destroys the ''Queen Anne's Revenge'', forcing the group to escape on Rainbow and a few other hippocampi. In Miami, Percy realizes that Clarisse must fly back to camp alone as per her prophecy, but he and the others are captured by Luke. Taken aboard the ''Princess Andromeda'', Percy manages to make contact with Camp Half-Blood through the goddess Iris and tricks Luke into confessing, exonerating Chiron who is reinstated. An enraged Luke battles Percy, but Chiron and several other centaurs known as the Party Ponies arrive to rescue them and Chiron explains that he is mistrusted as Kronos is his father.

The Golden Fleece is hung on Thalia's pine tree, and the tree is cured. Grover is given a furlough on his quest to find the god Pan, having cleared the obstacle of Polyphemus luring in searchers through the Golden Fleece. The camp holds a second chariot race which Percy and Annabeth win with the help of Tyson who departs after accepting an offer from Poseidon to work in the god's underwater Cyclops forges. However, the Fleece's magic is too strong and it resurrects Thalia, providing another possible demigod for the Great Prophecy, which Percy realizes was Kronos' intention all along.

The story follows Yasmin, Ari, Cloe, and Jade, 4 very different teenage girls from different worlds who bond over the ups and downs of adolescent life at Lewis & Clark High School. The girls learn the value of real friend ship in spite of the social pressures of school, family and the expectation to be cool.

Gooney Bird Greene has just transferred to Mrs. Pidgeon's second grade class in Watertower. She is unusually self-confident, likes to be the center of attention, and has an eccentric flair for style, and an exciting, almost magical past. When Mrs. Pidgeon suggests storytelling lessons, the class demands, instead of well-worn Christopher Columbus, Gooney Bird as the main character of the story.

So begins Gooney Bird's series of autobiographical tales, outlandish in theme but "only absolutely true": "How Gooney Bird Got Her Name","How Gooney Bird Came from China on a Flying Carpet", "The Prince, the Palace, and the Diamond Earrings", "Why Gooney Bird Was Late for School Because She Was Directing a Symphony Orchestra", and "Beloved Catman Is Consumed by a Cow". Along the way, the class learns not just about Gooney Bird, but how to tell a story, and how everyone has a story to tell.

The plot concerns a journey by a spaceship to enter through the layers of gas surrounding a comet and observe the nucleus at close range. This part of the mission is successful, but the ship's computer develops a malfunction and they are unable to compute the required orbit to escape the comet. The ionised gas in the comet's tail prevents any radio communication with Earth.

George Takeo Pickett, a part-Japanese journalist on board the ship, recalls the use of the abacus used by his granduncle, a bank teller, and persuades the ship's astronomer to give it a try. Once convinced, the astronomer creates a production line of the crew, using abaci to carry out the calculations that the computer would normally do.

The procedure is successful and an orbit is calculated to bring the ship within radio range of Earth.

In late 1861, the United Kingdom gets involved in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy in the wake of the Trent Affair. In early 1862, the Union attempts to win a decisive victory against the Confederacy before British reinforcements arrive in the Americas at the Battle of Culpeper but fail miserably because of the horrible leadership of George B. McClellan. However, after numerous defeats for the Anglo-Confederate Alliance and losing Robert E. Lee and most of Canada, the United Kingdom accepts an offer of peace from the Union on the latter's terms.

The British frame the Confederacy for supposedly causing the Trent Affair and switches sides in the war. As a result, the Confederacy admits defeat in early 1863, which ends the conflict two years sooner. John Wilkes Booth is arrested and sentenced to death for trying to help Confederate snipers kill US President Abraham Lincoln and so Lincoln is never assassinated.

Most of the battles take place in Canada or in the oceans, like Hampton Roads. A cavalry battle near the end of the novel takes place on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, presumably in Hummelstown and Hershey. The climactic battle takes place in Washington.

Stan's bicycle is towed away for parking violations. To reacquire it, he is forced to become the coach of a pee-wee hockey team. As coach, he quickly runs into a whole host of problems in dealing with the small boys. One of the boys, Nelson, has cancer, which has already spread to his bone marrow. When he takes a turn for the worse, he asks Stan to win a game for him. However, neither team is capable of scoring and the game ends in a tie.

The team is invited to play at the Pepsi Center, with the same premise — if Stan's team wins, Nelson will have enough hope to survive. When they get to the Pepsi Center to play in the intermission of an NHL professional ice hockey game between the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings, the other team does not show up, and Stan worries that since they cannot play, it could result in Nelson's death. Attempting to console the boys, the Avalanche let the pee-wee team play the final period of their game against the Red Wings. The Red Wings unleash a vicious assault on the boys and go on to win 32–2, Nelson dies in the hospital and the Red Wings very brutally celebrate their victory to the song “We Are the Champions.”

At Kelly Prescott's pool party, Suze unknowingly contracts a poison oak rash after falling into some bushes while spying on her stepbrother Dopey. She also shares a slow dance with Tad, a student at a local school. That night, Suze is awoken by the ghost of a woman who starts yelling hysterically. The woman asks Suze to tell "Red" that he did not kill her. Suze does not know who this woman is, or who "Red" is, but the ghost disappears before she has the chance to ask. She later finds out from her friend CeeCee that a local businessman called Thaddeus Beaumont goes by that name.

Suze tries and fails to get in contact with Mr Beaumont. She encounters the ghost of a boy named Timothy, who tells her his parents abandoned his cat, Spike. Suze promises to find the cat and give him a good home. With the pretense that she is a reporter for the school paper, Suze goes to Beaumont's mansion and meets him. She delivers the ghost's message, saying the woman appeared in a dream. Mr Beaumont seems only interested that he wasn't the cause of the woman's death and that Suze was able to speak to her. He is eager to get Suze to summon the spirits of other people he says he has killed. Disconcerted, Suze tries to leave, only to find that she is trapped. She is rescued by Beaumont's secretary Marcus, who escorts her out, believing she was merely playing a prank. As they leave, they encounter Tad, who is Beaumont's son. Recognizing her from the pool party, Tad takes Suze on a coffee date and gives her a ride home; when he drops her off, he kisses her. Their kiss is interrupted by Jesse, who warns Suze to stay away from the Beaumont family.

When Suze explains the situation to Father Dom, he suggests that the strangeness of Mr Beaumont's behavior could mean that he is a vampire. Several days later, Suze retrieves Spike the cat from a field and hides him in her room. CeeCee researches Beaumont upon Suze's request and discovers a string of disappearances linking to his companies. One of the missing women - Mrs Deirdre Fiske - vaguely resembles the ghost who has asked Suze for help. Adam takes them to the house of CeeCee's Aunt Pru, a fortune-teller, who tries to summon Mrs Fiske using Tarot cards. Although the ghost of Mrs Fiske confirms that a Beaumont killed her, Suze realizes she is not the ghost she is looking for.

That evening, Mr Beaumont and Tad invite Suze for dinner at their house. After the meal, Beaumont drugs Tad and tries to talk to Suze about her psychic abilities. Believing he is a vampire, Suze stabs him in the chest with a pencil but fails to kill him. Marcus threatens Suze to never return and to not speak of Beaumont's vampirism, which he claims is a psychosis. Later, CeeCee calls Suze with the revelation that after the death of Tad's mother, Beaumont had handed over most of his business duties to Marcus, who is actually his brother. Tad also calls Suze to apologize, but they have an argument when Tad denies his father's illness and Suze implies Marcus's potential role in the Beaumont killings.

The next morning, Suze is kidnapped by Marcus and his thugs. She tries to escape, but Marcus forces her into Mr Beaumont's office, giving her a swimsuit to change into, and leaves; he plans to kill her and Tad by drowning them in the ocean during a storm. Suze smashes the aquarium in the office when Marcus returns to check on her. When he threatens her with a gun, Suze electrocutes him with a lightbulb from the aquarium. As the building catches fire, Jesse, appears, claiming Suze "called" him, and breaks the window shutters, allowing Tad and Suze to escape the burning building. Marcus remains missing after the incident.

Suze returns home but is grounded by her parents as she is unable to tell them the full story. 'Red' turns out to be the nickname of Suze's stepbrother Doc, and the ghost is Doc's mother. Suze tells Doc his mother's message, and admits that she is a mediator. Tad calls Suze with the news that he is moving to San Francisco while his father recovers, and they break up.

When Suze’s best friend from New York, Gina, comes to visit her in Carmel, her stepbrothers Jake and Brad (aka Sleepy and Dopey) start fighting for Gina's attention. While they are at the beach one afternoon, a group of ghosts in formal wear catches Suze's attention. She learns that they were popular students from a local high school, nicknamed the 'RLS Angels', who had recently died in a car crash after their spring formal, and that her quiet, geeky classmate Michael Meducci was the driver of the other car in the accident. The Angels are furious at Michael for their deaths, and make it clear that they will not stop at anything to kill him. They make several attempts on his life, each one desperately fended off by Suze. Unfortunately, Michael interprets Suze's constant presence as her having a crush on him, so he tries to pursue a relationship with her, much to the amusement of her family and friends.

Father Dominic and Suze investigate the scene of the accident, accompanied by Jesse. When the RLS Angels appear, Jesse calms them down so that Father Dom and Suze can talk to them. Suze discovers that Michael killed the Angels on purpose as revenge for his younger sister, who is in a coma after drinking too much and almost drowning at one of their parties. When Suze's mother finds out that Michael was involved in the 'accident', she forbids Suze to get in a car with him, but Suze doesn't listen. She asks Michael to pick her up and they go to the scene of the murder.

Suze tricks Michael into a confession, but he realizes Suze is going to expose him and tries to kill her. Suze summons the Angels to protect herself, but when she tries to stop them from killing Michael again, they turn their wrath on her. Furiously, they beat up Suze and Jesse, who has followed her. Suze is badly injured and taken to the hospital, where she finds that Michael has confessed to the police and is going behind bars, and Father Dom reassures her that the Angels have now moved on. The day after Michael’s arrest, his sister wakes up from her coma.

Everyone visits Suze in the hospital except Jesse, which makes her sad, and when she catches him trying to dematerialize, she expresses her hurt. Jesse admits his concern, calling her ''querida'', and Suze stops denying that she loves him.

The story begins with Moreta, the senior Weyrworman of Fort Weyr, traveling with her queen dragon Orlith (who is near the end of her pregnancy) to the Gather at Ruatha Hold. At the Gather there is talk about a strange animal that was on display at Ista that was found at sea. However Moreta is more interested in the runner races that are being held at the Gather. As she was hold bred she loves to watch runners race. While Moreta is watching the races with Alessan, the new Lord Holder, a runner suddenly collapses from having liquid in its lungs. No one knows why the runner comes down with such an illness. It is quickly taken off the field. After a few more races Moreta goes to the Dancing Square with Alessan's younger sister, Oklina.

When Moreta wakes up the next morning she is greeted with news from Weyrleader Sh’gall, who tells her that the disease is now an epidemic and is spreading very quickly across Pern. Masterhealer Capian has ordered a quarantine to try stopping the spreading of the disease. Moreta quickly gives out orders to isolate the Weyr, but it is too late as Berchar, the Weyr Healer, has already been infected with the disease.

Back at Fort Weyr, Moreta, even though there is quarantine upon them, has to get everyone ready for the next fall to protect Pern from Thread. When the Thread begins to fall the dragon riders take to the sky, protecting everyone from the Crom to Nabol. The sickness had spread so far and fast that the Weyrleaders met two days later to talk about what they should do next along with making a list of bronzeriders that could take control if they would die of the sickness and decide against exploring the Southern Continent anymore, since the animal found at sea was responsible for the sickness had come from there.

Capian continues to try to find a cure when he remembers a lecture he was given long ago by Masterharper Tirone. Capiam has an epiphany when he realizes that the blood of those who have recovered from the sickness like himself could be turned into a serum to cure others. They quickly start to make and deliver the serum to the sick. K’lon begins to deliver the serum and Leri realizes he been traveling through time, also known as "timing it", a secret only known by bronze and gold dragon riders, to be able to deliver all the serum quickly.

Upon realizing there would be a second wave of disease, Desdra points out a problem where they do not have enough needlethorn to vaccinate people with; along with the problem that it does not bloom until Autumn. Moreta then comes up with a plan to travel in time into the future so they could collect the needlethorn in Ista. Moreta along with B’lerion, Alessan, Oklina, Capiam and Desdra then travel secretly into the future to harvest the needlethorn.

The mass vaccination happens the next day with help from the dragon riders. Moreta's Queen dragon, Orlith, is heavy with new dragon eggs and so cannot fly Moreta between. Leri offers her own Queen dragon, Holth. When Moreta is done with visiting different holds she is exhausted and heads back with Holth, timing it to get there faster.

Back at the hatching grounds at Fort Weyr, K’lon, Rogeth and Leri waits for Moreta's along with Holth's return. Orlith suddenly bursts out shrieking. Rogeth tells him that Moreta and Holth failed to envision their destination properly due to exhaustion and have died between as a result.

A month later, everyone, including people from other Weyrs and their dragons, gather at Fort Weyr for the Hatching. Oklina was among the candidates and was chosen by the newly hatched queen dragon, Hannath. Just before the hatching Orlith goes between with Leri to be with their missing rider/dragon.

The planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists—seeking to return to an agrarian-based simpler way of life, Admiral Paul Benden, Governor Emily Boll and the rest of the colonists had selected Pern as a place to leave their recent wars and troubles behind. Shortly after arriving on the planet, however, a new threat appeared – the lethal spore Thread.

With time running out and the colony's destruction imminent, geneticist Kitti Ping Yung and her granddaughter Wind Blossom set out to bio-engineer Pernese lifeforms that appear to instinctively react to the Thread – the dragonets that colonists have adopted as pets. In order to ensure the survival of the newly designed species, as well as reduce the possible threat they may have to the colonists by going rogue, they are created with an ability to bond with humans. By the end of the book, Sorka Hanrahan and Sean Connell and a few other young colonists become the first of the dragonriders.

March 6, 1964

In early March 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced to deliver his wife Norah's twins with the help of a nurse, Caroline Gill. Their first child, a boy they name Paul, is born a healthy perfect child, but when the second baby is born, Phoebe, David notices she has Down syndrome. David, recalling the possibility of a heart defect and early death (which his younger sister June had had; dying at the young age of twelve) and decides that the baby girl will be placed in an institution.

Caroline was given the baby to take to the institution, but simply didn't like the conditions. She decides to keep and raise the baby, who is named Phoebe. While Caroline is at the store, her car runs out of gas and she is stranded in the snow with Phoebe. She is picked up by a truck driver, Al Simpson, who drives them to Caroline's home. Meanwhile, David tells Norah that their daughter died at birth. After hearing that Caroline had kept Phoebe rather than take her to the institution, David bids her to do what she thinks is right. Caroline leaves for Pittsburgh to make a fresh start with Phoebe.

1965

The "death" of their daughter has caused a rift in David and Norah's marriage. They move to a new home but continue to find it difficult to romantically connect. Meanwhile, Caroline begins working for Dorothy "Doro" March as a private nurse for her father, Leo. Caroline claims that Phoebe is her daughter and tells a half-true story of running away from Phoebe's father because he wanted to institutionalize Phoebe.

Caroline sends letters and pictures of Phoebe to David. David sends money to Caroline and makes a half-hearted attempt to find out where Caroline and Phoebe live. Meanwhile, Al, the truck driver who assisted Caroline on the night of Phoebe's birth, discovers her whereabouts. He and Caroline begin regular visits, and romance begins to bloom between them.

1970

Six years later, the distance between the Henrys has increased. David is now an aspiring photographer with his own darkroom, where he keeps Phoebe's pictures and Caroline's letters locked away. He immerses himself in his work and basically leaves the family, only coming back into their lives to complain about Paul. Norah drinks secretly and becomes overprotective of Paul.

In Pittsburgh, Phoebe is growing up a healthy child despite David's negative predictions at her birth about her mental disabilities. Caroline and the Upside Down Society, a group of other parents of Down syndrome children, petition the school system to mainstream their children in public school.

Al still visits Caroline and has proposed to her twice. She continues to decline, although out of doubts for his fatherly love for Phoebe rather than his romantic intentions toward her. Phoebe is stung by a bee while at play and has a serious allergic reaction. Al helps Caroline take her to the hospital and steps in when a nurse's comment about Phoebe's condition outrages Caroline. Caroline realizes his genuine love for her and fatherly intentions for Phoebe. She tells Al she wants to marry him.

1977

Paul and Phoebe are now thirteen, and Caroline and Al have been married five years. David sends Caroline a letter, asking her to let him meet Phoebe and allow her to know her twin brother, Paul. Caroline decides not to contact David again, worried he might unknowingly hurt Phoebe.

Paul is becoming an accomplished guitarist and dreams of attending Juilliard. David and Norah live almost completely separate lives and differ on what Paul should do when he's older. Norah simply wants her son to be happy, while David pushes Paul to follow a career path that will guarantee stability, money, and success.

While on vacation in Aruba, Norah has a love affair with Howard, who is also married with children at home. David blames the affair on himself and continues to spend more and more time in his darkroom with his photographs of Phoebe.

1989

Paul and Phoebe are now twenty-five. Norah and David are divorced and Paul is traveling and studying music in France with his own girlfriend. Phoebe is in love with Robert, who also has Down syndrome, and wants to get married and live in a group home, but Caroline is scared to let Phoebe live an independent life.

David considers making a confession to Norah about Phoebe but can't bear to go through with it. Soon afterward, he dies from a heart attack. Later, when Norah sorts through David's collection of photographs, she begins to understand him in a way she never did when they were married. Caroline comes to visit Norah and explains that Phoebe never died at all and is living with her. Norah and Paul later visit Pittsburgh and meet Phoebe for the first time. Paul drives Phoebe to their late father's grave. Paul thinks of what his twin sister might have been like if she had not been born with Down syndrome.

The novel centers around Rod Gallowglass, a SCENT agent, who stumbles across the planet Gramarye. Immediately upon landing he is thrust into a world of medieval people, witches and warlocks, and all manner of mythical creatures. Rod is aided by his faithful companion Fess, an epileptic robot. While gathering intelligence, Rod discovers the planet is in political turmoil, due to futurian influence on behalf of the PEST and VETO organizations who plan to corrupt the planet away from democracy, which Rod plans to bring to the planet, due to the planet's importance to the future of the DDT. The three main factions are the Monarchy led by Queen Catherine, the beggars led by Tuan Loguire, and the Noble Lords eventually led by Anselm Loguire.

Unfortunately for Rod when going to an inn for the night he is attacked by Big Tom. Rod defeats him, almost too easily, and Big Tom becomes a squire for Rod. Shortly thereafter the "wee people", who saw him land, declare him a warlock and put him to a test to determine if he is good or evil by forcing him to fight a werewolf. Upon defeating it, with garlic sausage, he is returned to the inn he was staying at. The next day Rod and Tom head to Catherine's castle to get themselves positions as soldiers. To do this however Rod is caught up in a fight with Brom O'Berin, a dwarf who is advisor to the Queen. Though defeated, Rod is permitted to join the Queen under the promise to solve the mystery of the Banshee which is continuously spotted upon the castle battlements. Rod discovers it is a hologram machine set upon the castle roof; he quickly disables it and is sent out for his next mission.

Rod is then sent to gain intelligence on the Lords who have assembled at the fortress of Duke Loguire. On his way to the fortress Rod encounters a witch of his own age named Gwendylon. Gwen and Rod fall in love but Big Tom tells Rod he should stay away from her. Passing themselves off as minstrels, Rod and Big Tom gain entrance to the fortress and find the old Duke losing his grasp on the other lords. Rod discovers each lord has a new advisor, who are all PEST agents. Rod seeks more answers by exploring the haunted areas of the fortress, where he encounters ghosts. Thanks to Fess the ghosts give up trying to stop Rod and allow him free access. Rod discovers a passageway behind the Duke's seat in the great hall, which he later uses to save the Duke when the lords turn on him. However the ghosts discover that Gwen had followed Rod and return her to him. Upon saving the Duke, who is then replaced by his son Anselm, they make their escape into the forest and back to the Queen's castle. However, not having the full story, the Queen imprisons the old Duke Loguire for high treason and attempts to imprison Rod and Tom for aiding him until Brom comes to their aid and Cathrine lets them free.

Events soon take a turn for the worst when Rod finds himself betrayed by Big Tom, who is revealed to be a VETO agent from the future. Rod is imprisoned in a local inn VETO is headquartered at, called the House of Clovis, with some very unlikely cell mates. Tuan Loguire had been betrayed by the VETO leader in the House named the Mocker, and Big Tom, having had second thoughts about betraying Rod, was also thrown in jail. While in jail the Mocker's plan is unveiled that he, with his lieutenants armed with futuristic guns, would throw the country into anarchy. In an escape plan Rod contacts Fess for help who in turn calls for Gwen who had been hiding with Fess. Gwen calls the elves for help who in turn send the Prince of Elves to break Rod out. To Rod's surprise the Prince of Elves turns out to be Brom O'Bernin. Rod, Brom, Tuan, and Tom return to the castle to form a plan to overthrow the Mocker. Though at the castle tensions are high between Tuan and Catherine.

Rod, Tom and Tuan return to the House of Clovis with their plan to kill the Mocker. They succeed and the beggars are united under Queen Catherine. With their new forces assembled Catherine's forces march out to confront the Lords. A great battle ensues but Rod notices the advisors, led by Durer (Anselm's advisor), are building a large weapon to quickly decimate the Royal army. However the advisors are wielding energy swords and Big Tom, in an attempt to kill Durer, is killed. Rod, having witnessed Tom's death, rides with haste wielding a blaster from Fess's saddle and kills Durer.

After the battle, with Rod's intervention, Tuan and Catherine are married. Rod sent a message to SCENT stating that he was quitting to stay on Gramarye with Gwen, but quickly receives a message back requesting he stay on as the permanent SCENT agent of Gramarye. He immediately proposes to Gwen but she refuses to let him kiss her until he admits he is a warlock, and Rod then for the first time states that he IS a warlock.

In 1889, upon arriving in Oklahoma, a couple learn about local legends surrounding a "snake god" called Yig, which takes vengeance on anyone who kills a serpent by either killing them or turning them into a half-snake monster. The husband has an intense fear of snakes, and his wife kills a nest of rattlesnakes at one of their campsites. The husband is horrified by the thought that Yig will take vengeance. After building their cabin, the husband is insistent on practicing various rituals from the native tribes to keep Yig away, grating heavily on his wife's nerves. In fear, the woman kills her own husband in the dark, thinking he is Yig. She is taken to an asylum, and dies there... but not before giving birth to four half-snake creatures.

The story is narrated by an ethnologist who visits the town of Binger, Oklahoma, in 1928 to investigate certain stories related to a certain nearby mound, which is said to be haunted by a strange Native American man by day and a headless woman by night. The local people avoid the place, and there are strange stories of those who dared to venture there either disappearing, or returning insane and inexplicably altered. Being initially quite skeptical, the narrator brings some archaeological tools and visits the mound, noticing that the man pacing it appears closest to the Native Americans, but cannot be identified with any known Native American tribe. Through a talisman made of a strange metal given to him by a local chieftain, he unearths a strange cylinder made of the same unidentifiable metal full of hideous engravings and strange hieroglyphics.

Upon discovering a scroll written in Spanish in the cylinder, the narrator returns to his host and begins to translate it. The contents of the scroll, covering a large part of the narrative, describe the travels of one Pánfilo de Zamacona y Nuñez, an Asturian explorer, almost 400 years prior. Zamacona recounts how he was a part of an expedition from Mexico to North America, and how, through the help of a Native American, he discovered a vast underground world filled with grotesque temples, and populated by strange beasts and a highly advanced telepathic civilization who worshipped Cthulhu, Yig, Shub-Niggurath, and—until a certain incident—Tsathoggua. The members of the underground race—who lived in what they called the kingdom of K’nyan—welcomed him, but the more Zamacona learned about them the more fearful he became.

The K'nyanians had attained immortality and subjugated other races before them, had the technology to biologically modify vanquished races and other life-forms and reanimate the dead for use as slaves, and could dematerialize and rematerialize at will. The underground people also engaged in sadism, depraved practices, ritualistic orgies, and unspeakable horrors such as random body modifications and mutilations of other slave species as entertainment, in order to gratify their time-dulled senses. The bored inhabitants, desperate for new stimulation, are thrilled to have a visitor from the outer world, and through them, Zamacona discovers the history of the mysterious world. The K'nyanians are not the first advanced civilization of the world and have in fact built their society on top of another realm, which in turn had been built on another dark world even further beneath. They know little of the previous inhabitants, though it is implied that the K'nyanians' beasts of burden, a kind of quasi-mammalian quadruped, are the non-sentient degenerate descendants of the previous race, as they had first been found in the ruins of the older civilization. They also tell him of their exploration of the lightless realm, whose inhabitants worshipped a being known as Tsathoggua, a worship the K'nyanians brought back with them, but was eventually outlawed after the discovery of a hideous secret in the dark realm that may have caused the extinction of its inhabitants (the descriptions of which resemble a Shoggoth). The K'nyanians would develop a very advanced civilization but eventually regressed somewhat after finding no further use for technological advancement, returning to using their vast mental powers and beasts of burden for labor.

As Zamacona observed their decaying social condition and their reactions to his telling them of the surface people, he feared that they would one day decide to invade the outside world, where, given their advanced powers, they would be unstoppable. However, his hosts, who once had settlements on the outside world until the last Ice Age forced them underground, fear it and refuse to let him leave, out of fear that he would tell his countrymen of their realm, and their boundless greed for gold would attract an invasion, something Zamacona fears is inevitable, as more and more Europeans are arriving in the New World.

Eventually, Zamacona attempted to escape with T'la-yub, a female K'nyanian native who knew of an unguarded entrance to the surface world, carrying with him a cylinder containing a scroll that recorded his story, which he hoped would warn the surface world of the underground threat. However, he was betrayed by one of his biologically modified slave creatures and was captured. T'la-yub was sentenced to unspeakable tortures and mutilations at the amphitheater and ended up as a headless zombie guarding the entrance, while Zamacona was spared because they wished to extract more of his knowledge. Later on, he attempted another escape, which apparently resulted in the cylinder containing the scroll being deposited on the mound. His narrative ends quite hurriedly and abruptly.

The narrator is shocked by this scroll but remains skeptical, so the next day he goes to the mound again for further investigation, repeatedly telling himself that this is an elaborate hoax. Upon digging in a depression on the mound, he discovers a staircase leading deep underground, where he encounters dematerialized beings patrolling the tunnel (they are prevented from making the narrator one more victim by the talisman of unidentifiable metal) as well as the remains of equipment brought by explorers before him, some of which now has become partially dematerialized. Driven to near-hysterics already, the narrator finally comes across a fully material entity at the sight of which his nerves completely break down, sending him fleeing wildly back to the surface. That entity is revealed to be the completely mutilated and reanimated corpse of Zamacona with a message inscribed onto his chest in broken Spanish by the underground race. The message reads "Seized by the will of ''K’n-yan'' in the headless body of ''T’la-yub''".

In the first canto, the poet climbs a mountain from which he observes an eagle and a snake battle. The eagle prevails. A woman takes the poet and the wounded snake in a boat. The poet is placed for a time in the regions of eternal repose, where the good and great of mankind are represented as recounting, before the throne of the Spirit of Good, their earthly sufferings and labours. Among these are two, a man and a woman of the country of Argolis, who, after rescuing their country for a brief time from the tyranny of the house of Othman and accomplishing this great revolution by the force of persuasive eloquence and the sympathies of human love alone, without violence, bloodshed, or revenge, saw the fruit of all their toils blasted by foreign invasion, and the dethroned but not insulted tyrant replaced upon his seat. Finally, amidst all the darkness of their country's horizon, Laon and Cythna died, without fear, the death of heroic martyrdom, burned alive at the stake, gathering consolation, in the last pangs of their expiring nature, from the hope and the confidence that their faith and example might yet raise up successors to their labours, and that they had neither lived nor died in vain. In the persons of these martyrs, Shelley has striven to embody his ideas of the power and beauty of human affections, and, in their history, he has set forth a series of pictures, illustrating the efficacy of these affections in overcoming the evils of private and of public life.

As the poem opens, Laon and Cythna live in daydreams of delight. This tranquility is soon shattered. The troops of Othman, a tyrant, come and seize Cythna for Othman's harem as food "To the hyena lust, who, among graves, Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves." Laon reacts by killing three of the attackers. The remaining troops drag him away to await his punishment in a prison. Laon suffers from thirst and hunger, but seeks to find Cythna. A white sail is set on the bay below him, and he feels that the vessel is destined to bear Cythna from the shore. The thought of this meeting drives him to near madness. On the fourth day he is raging on the summit of his pillar, when there arrives an old man, a hermit, who has heard of the cause of his affliction, of his generous nature and lofty aspirations. The kind elderly man frees him from his chain and conveys him to a small bark below, while entirely insensible to what is passing around him. Laon learns later that the old man's eloquence has subdued his keepers, who have consented, at their own peril, to his escape. He is conveyed across the sea to a lonely island, where for seven years he is tended by this aged benefactor, whose kind and compassionate wisdom is sufficient to win back the mind of Laon to self-possession.

After Laon recovers, the old man tells him that during the years of his illness the cause of liberty slowly gained ground in the "Golden City", modelled on Constantinople, and that he himself would gladly assist in the Revolution which has now actually started there. The old man, however, considers himself too old and too subdued in his spirit and language to be an effective leader.

Laon accepts with eagerness the proposal of the old man and they depart in their bark for the revolutionised city. On their arrival they find the work apparently almost completed. An immense multitude of the people, men weary of political slavery and women sick of domestic abuse, are assembled in the fields outside the walls. Laon and his friend walk into the encampment and are received as friends. The host already acknowledged a leader and a presiding spirit in the person of a female, whom they reverence under the name of Laone. Laon and this heroine are attracted to each other by some unknown sympathy. The tones of her voice stir up all the depths of his spirit, but her countenance is veiled.

The palace of Othman is subsequently surrounded by the crowd, and entering it, Laon finds the tyrant sitting alone in his hall, deserted by all but one child, whose affection he has won by commendations and caresses.

The monarch is quietly removed from his palace with none following him but the child. On this consummation of their triumph, the multitude join in holding a high festival, of which Laone is the priestess.

Laon sits near her in her pyramid, but he is withheld, by a strange impulse, from speaking to her, and he retires to pass the night in repose at a distance from where she sleeps. At the break of day, Laone is awakened by sounds of tumults. The multitude, lately so firm and collected, are seen flying in every direction. He learns that the cause of their disarray is the arrival of a foreign army, sent by some of his brother princes to the relief of Othman. Laone, and a few of the more heroic spirits, withdraw to the side of a hill, where, ill-armed and outnumbered, they are slaughtered by their enemies. They take up their abode in a lonely retreat.

They remain for some time in this retreat, communicating to each other the long histories of their suffering. Cythna, according to her own wild tale, was carried away from Laon at the moment when he killed three of the captors that surrounded her, had been conveyed to the tyrant's palace, and had suffered all the insults, and almost all the injuries, to which its inmates were exposed. Her high spirit had, however, offended at last her oppressor, and she was sent to a Submarine cavern, or undersea cave, near the Symplegades, to which strange dungeon she was borne through the waves by a slave, "made dumb by poison, A Diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral sea."

In this dungeon, she was supplied with a daily pittance of food by an eagle, trained to hover over the only crevice through which the air had access to the captive. She sank into a melancholy frenzy and was aroused to consciousness by strange feelings which taught her to expect that she was about to be a mother. It is so, she gives birth, and for a while all the sorrows of her prison are soothed by the caresses of her child. But the child disappears suddenly and the bewildered mother half suspects that its existence has been but a dream of her madness. At last an earthquake changes the position of the cavern and Cythna is released by some passing mariners, who convey her to the city of Othman. The sailors are persuaded by her discourses during the voyage to take a part in the insurrection, which Cythna arrives in time to lead.

The merciless slaughter which followed the suppression of the revolt by the mercenary troops of the Tyrant's allies has led to a devastating plague accompanied by famine. The allies each invoke their separate Gods to relieve them of the pestilence, and resolve (at the suggestion of one "Iberian priest") to offer Cythna and Laon as a sacrifice to the deity; whoever locates them will receive the tyrant's daughter in marriage. It has been the custom of Laon to ride every night on the Tartar horse to procure food for Cythna. But now he leaves her. Shortly after a hooded figure appears in the tyrant's court, who offers to betray Laon to them if they will promise by God to transport Cythna safely to America (which Shelley hails as a nation of liberty, "mighty in its youth," etc.). When they comply, he unmasks, revealing Laon himself ("And [he] smiled in gentle pride and said, 'lo, I am he!'"). Laon is sentenced to death at the stake. At the last moment, Cythna rides up on the tartar horse to come and share his fate. Both are burned alive at the stake. "A Shape of light is sitting by his side, A child most beautiful. In the midst appears Laon, exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears." Finally, Laon and Cythna undergo a miraculous transformation. In the final scenes, their spiritual odyssey of transmogrification is recounted.

In October 2002, former Mayor of Lewiston Laurier T. Raymond wrote an open letter addressed to leaders of the Somali immigrant community, predicting a negative impact on the city's social services and requesting that they discourage further relocation to the town. The letter angered some persons and prompted various community leaders and residents to speak out against the mayor, drawing national attention. Demonstrations were held in Lewiston, both by those who supported the immigrants' presence and those who opposed it. In January 2003, a small white supremacist group demonstrated in the city in support of the mayor, prompting a simultaneous counter-demonstration of about 4,000 people at Bates College and the organization of the "Many and One Coalition".

Bernie Reubens, a young Jewish boy, is about to have his bar mitzvah. Initially, he meticulously plans a lavish reception to upstage that of his older brother Alvie, but as the family's finances lurch from one disaster to another, the family is forced to lower Bernie's expectations and stage the bar mitzvah reception at home in North London. When England reaches the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, held on the same day, most of the guests make excuses not to come to the reception so that they can watch the game. In the end, Bernie's father saves the day by driving Bernie to Wembley Stadium to witness the end of the match.

The narrative begins on a hillside, where the protagonist, Danny Lodge, encounters a man in a radiation suit, who confiscates his bike and orders him to return to his home town, the fictional Yorkshire town of Skipley. Arriving there, Danny finds the town in ruins, and learns that his family's shop has collapsed, killing his mother. His brother Ben and their father have survived, as they were in the cellar, which is used as a stockroom. With so much food in their stockroom, the Lodges have plenty to live on, but as the weeks pass, other people begin fighting over food. Shortly after the war, Danny meets a girl named Kim.

The local Commissioner issues an order that the injured and infirm are to be taken out of the town and placed at the roadside so they can be taken to hospital: this turns out to be front for his secret plan to kill off those who will be a burden. After a while, the Commissioner implements a system of food and fuel rationing, with severe penalties introduced for hoarding. The injured, elderly, and people who have been emotionally traumatised by the nuclear attack are given poisoned rations. Mr Lodge refuses to allow his stock to be used for this purpose and, though Danny and Ben register for ration cards, they only visit the local feeding centre once.

Presently, the Commissioner's men come to the shop and arrest Mr Lodge. The lorry bearing Mr Lodge explodes, killing everyone on board, and leaving Danny and Ben orphans. The brothers seek sanctuary at the home of Sam Branwell, a smallholder who, along with several other survivors, has formed a resistance movement called Masada, an acronym for "Movement to Arm Skipley Against Dictational Authority" and an allusion to the historic siege. Masada has the aim of overthrowing the Commissioner and preventing the creation of a feudal society; its other members include Keith Rhodes (who was responsible for blowing up the lorry), Danny's former P.E. teacher, and Kim.

The protagonists discover that a concentration camp has been erected on a farm outside of Skipley, with the remaining able-bodied population being used as slave labour under the Commissioner's rule. Members of Masada decide to step up their campaign of resistance, and launch a night raid on the camp. After a battle, the Commissioner is overthrown and Branwell is established as the new leader.

In the months after the raid, all the newly planted crops fail due to radiation damage. Kim's sister Maureen has become pregnant, and Kim is worried that the baby may be deformed; ultimately, the child is born without a mouth, and dies not long afterwards.

Foreign troops arrive by helicopter, revealing there to be survivor communities all over Europe. Believing the Swiss troops will rescue them, the camp foolishly eat many of their rations. In fact, the Swiss confiscate their weapons and disable the few vehicles they have. By now, the camp's food supplies are exhausted, forcing the people to scavenge for whatever they can find, and many are dying. Gradually, people start to leave in small groups to fend for themselves. Shortly after Branwell dies from exhaustion during the second winter after the war, Danny, Kim and Ben leave the camp and head to Holy Island, where Danny hopes they will be safe.

During the journey to Holy Island, they encounter a group on motorbikes, including Rhodes. Kim shoots Rhodes and another biker as they are about to shoot Danny in order to steal his food.

Ben gradually becomes ill and dies of acute radiation syndrome: Danny and Kim bury his body in the garden of an empty house. Inside the house, Danny finds a ledger, and starts writing an account of his experiences after the war. He ends by saying that he plans to leave his account behind for future generations to read, hoping it will warn them not to go down the path which led to nuclear war. Finally, Danny dedicates his story to Ben, his "brother in the land".

In 1994, the book was reprinted with an additional, final chapter. In this revised ending, Ben still dies, but, rather than leave his account behind, Danny takes the ledger with him to Holy Island. Kim is expecting a baby, the fourth of Holy Island, with Danny being the father. If the baby survives, it will be named after Ben.

The storyline centres on four young female factory workers who escape the monotony of their jobs by spending their evenings at the Chiswick Palais, the local dance hall, where they have various problems with their boyfriends.

Dean Jones, who had appeared in two of the films (''The Love Bug'' and ''Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo''), reprises his role of Jim Douglas, Herbie's original owner, now a retired race car driver who works as an instructor at the Famous Driving School with his partner Bo Phillips (Richard Paul). He and Herbie stumble upon a bank robbery in progress. They manage to thwart the crime and rescue a young divorcée named Susan MacLane (Patricia Harty), who works at the bank and is a mother of three: Julie (Claudia Wells), Robbie (Douglas Emerson) and Matthew (Nicky Katt). Jim and Susan soon begin to fall in love, much to the consternation of her ex-boyfriend Randy Bigelow (Larry Linville). Randy's attempts to break them up are in vain; Jim and Susan get married in "Herbie the Best Man" episode that aired on April 7.

Peter is so annoyed by his friend Mort Goldman constantly borrowing his personal belongings that he creates a "Scare-Jew" (an effigy of Adolf Hitler) using his best suit to scare Mort away, which works (although he was merely returning Peter his hedge clippers). Frustrated, Lois takes him to a thrift store to get a new suit, where Peter finds some flannel pajamas. He decides to wear them even to work; and after being told off by Lois, he suddenly notices that he can shock people with static electricity by rubbing his feet on the carpet. He enjoys using this as a prank opportunity so much, an annoyed Lois completely removes the carpet with Quagmire's help. This leads the family to find an antique 18th century Rhode Island ship token, hidden under the carpet, which the family sells for $50,000. With the money, Peter and Lois decide to live their dream of owning a restaurant, naming it "Big Pete's House of Munch".

The Griffins' business has a shaky start and loses money until Joe promises to bring his friends to the restaurant. Peter is at first excited at the thought of his restaurant becoming the hangout for police officers, but eventually finds that Joe is actually bringing in fellow paraplegics. The restaurant becomes a huge success among handicapped customers, but Peter is disappointed that what was supposed to be a cool restaurant has become a "cafeteria at the veterans hospital", and did not want to take the profits for granted. An angered Peter stubbornly bans them from entering with a "no handicapped customers" policy, much to Joe's consternation. In response, the handicapped unite into a giant robot known as "CrippleTron", which begins attacking the restaurant while Peter, Chris and Stewie are on the roof. Stewie eventually takes matters into his own hands and covers Joe's eyes to defeat CrippleTron, which destroys the restaurant and falls on Peter, breaking one of his legs. After being taken to the hospital, Peter, needing to use a wheelchair for two weeks while his broken leg heals, apologizes to Joe, who accepts, touched to see Peter understand the difficulties of being disabled.

Orphaned by the age of 8, young Haitian Amabelle works for Don Ignacio and his daughter, in hopes of marrying her lover, Sebastien Onius. After the accidental death of one of Sebastien's fellow cane workers, the Haitian's distrust of the Dominican government grows, and this distrust is warranted. With news of the Generalissimo's intentions to “cleanse the country,” Haitian workers attempt to return to their home country.

When complications separate Amabelle and Sebastien during their attempt to flee, Amabelle is desperate to find what has become of Sebastien. Accompanied by Sebastien's friend, Yves, Amabelle makes her journey with the help of fellow survivors she encounters along the way. While escaping, the group must divide for their own safety. Upon reaching the town of Dajabon, Amabelle is disappointed to find that Sebastien is not there. While in Dajabon, Dominicans beat and torture Amabelle, Yves, and a fellow Haitian, Tibon, after recognizing their inability to pronounce “perejil” correctly, one of the most prevalent ways that the Dominicans determine the segregation of Haitians. On the verge of death, two remaining members of their group rescue Amabelle and Yves and bring them to the river that they must cross. Unfortunately, only Amabelle and Yves survive the dangerous crossing, where they are met at the other side by nuns who nurse them back to health. During the recovery process, Amabelle learns of the other survivors’ story of “kout kouto,” what the Haitians call the massacre.

Once Amabelle and Yves have healed, Yves offers to take Amabelle to his home. Upon arrival of the city, Amabelle and Yves settle in his home and try to rebuild their lives. While Yves finds solace in working in his father's fields and becomes a successful landowner, Amabelle continues her search for Sebastien. After finding Sebastien's mother and learning of the truth about Sebastien's fate, Amabelle returns to her life with Yves. Although Yves and Amabelle try to find comfort in one another, they are unable to fulfill each other's needs. Twenty years after her escape from Alegría, Amabelle decides to search for a connection to Sebastien by reliving old memories in places of the past. Despite reuniting with Señora Valencia, Amabelle is dissatisfied with the results of her search. In the final scene of the novel, Amabelle enters and rests in the Massacre River, winnowing through a handful of memories. Although distressed by loss, Amabelle finds the spiritual resilience to search for a new beginning.

This mid-season replacement show was about two best friends traveling across the United States on a road trip, accomplishing nothing of importance, and unwittingly destroying hopes, dreams, and personal property. Gary is a fairly normal, albeit high-strung, uptight, good hearted loser while Mike is the fun-loving, laid back, "best friend from hell" with a sex addiction. They meet hookers, mole people, and a scheming murderer, all while a vengeful father pursues Mike for bedding his daughter.

Although the final episode included a "to be continued" message, the show was canceled after its first season. According to co-creator Adam Small, 10 more episodes were planned for the second season. The cancellation was actually a result of the financial issues UPN was facing at the time rather than a ratings issue.

Margo Lorenz plays the newly married Martha Jorgensen, who is sat in her Copenhagen hotel room waiting for her husband, Jorgen, to return. She receives a visit from the mysterious Mr. Rasmusson (Douglas Wilmer), who claims to have been a "comrade" of her husband during World War II. He asks her not to tell her husband he is there if he should call.

When Jorgen rings, Martha tells him there is a visitor, but Rasmusson is furious that she has told him he is waiting, and produces a gun. He reveals that he and Jorgenson were two of a group of 12 men in the Danish underground resistance. They were discovered, and ten were shot. Rasmusson concludes that the only other survivor must have been the informer, whom he suspects has returned to the country to claim the equivalent of £5,000 stolen from the organisation. After more than ten years, he has sought out Jorgenson in order to kill him in revenge.

The distraught Martha refuses to believe her husband could have lied to her, but eventually admits she has some doubts.

When Jorgenson (David Markham) arrives home, he and Rasmusson talk, but Rasmusson does not reveal his true intent. After questioning him, Rasmusson establishes that Jorgenson is not the man he is looking for. The threesome drink together, and Rasmusson leaves in a noticeably cheerier mood, thankful to have spared Martha the distress of losing her husband.

Martha is satisfied that her husband has not lied, until the final moments, when Jorgen reveals he has been out for the day on business, settling the estate of a late uncle - who has left him the princely sum of £5,000.

Joseph Rearden, a British Intelligence agent, arrives in London and makes a rendezvous with Mackintosh, the head of his organisation, in a discreet office located just off Trafalgar Square. Mackintosh and his deputy, Mrs Smith, inform him of a simple way to steal diamonds which are transported via the postal service to avoid attention. This he does, apparently getting successfully away after punching a postman, and making off with the diamond-filled parcel. However, that evening, in his hotel room he is paid a visit by two Metropolitan Police detectives who have received an anonymous phone call advising them about the robbery. They are unconvinced by Rearden's pretence to be an innocent Australian who had recently arrived in London.

The judge at his trial is angered by the failure to recover the stolen diamonds from Rearden, who he believes has stashed them away somewhere, and sentences him to twenty years in jail. Rearden is shipped off to HM Prison Chelmsford. He slowly begins to blend in with the other prisoners, and is assigned to laundry-washing duties. A few days after entering he encounters Slade, a former British intelligence officer kept in high security after having been exposed as a KGB mole. He makes innocent enquiries of his fellow inmates about Slade, but not a great deal is known about him.

A few weeks later, he is approached by a well-spoken inmate who offers to act as a go-between with an organisation which can spring him from the prison in exchange for a large cut of the stolen diamonds. They are used to helping prisoners escape, and have another exit planned shortly, which he can join, if he is prepared to put up the money, to which he agrees. Two days later a diversion is arranged, and smoke bombs are hurled over the walls. Using the smoke screen Rearden and a fellow prisoner, who turns out to be Slade, are lifted over the walls by a cargo net and driven away at high speed. They are then drugged by injection, and taken to a secret location, somewhere in wild, deserted countryside. When Slade and Rearden awake, they are told they will be kept there for a week until the hunt for them dies down.

In London, Mackintosh discreetly monitors the progress of Rearden. His entry into prison has been a planned sting operation to smoke out the organisation. It is now intended they will be raided, rounded up and Slade returned to prison. Following a speech attacking the handling of the Slade escape by an old friend and war comrade, Sir George Wheeler MP in the House of Commons, Mackintosh approaches him and advises him it would be better to remain silent or risk embarrassing himself. Wheeler, however, despite masquerading as a staunchly patriotic right-winger, is actually a Communist and an agent of the KGB. He immediately tips off the head of the organisation where Rearden is being held. Mackintosh had suspected Wheeler and had used their meeting to try to flush him out. Before Mackintosh can act, he is run down by a car and dies soon afterwards.

In the meantime, Rearden falls under suspicion by the escape organisation. Doubting his claims to be an Australian criminal, they beat him violently and savage him with a guard dog. Eventually, he manages to fight back and escape the building, setting it on fire. He makes out across country, pursued by his guards and the dog. He is finally forced to drown the dog in a stream to throw his assailants off the scent. He then makes it to a nearby town, where he discovers he is on the west coast of Ireland and has apparently been staying on the estate of a close friend of Sir George Wheeler. He contacts Mrs Smith in London, who flies to meet him in Galway. Realising that Slade has been smuggled out of Ireland on the private yacht of Wheeler, they now head to Valletta, Malta, where Wheeler is heading.

Once in Malta, they try to infiltrate one of Wheeler's parties and discover the whereabouts of Slade. Wheeler soon recognises Mrs Smith — the daughter of his old friend Mackintosh — drugs her, and takes her aboard his yacht. Rearden tries to get the Maltese police to raid the boat, but they refuse to believe that a respected man as Wheeler can be involved in kidnapping and treason, so instead they move to arrest Rearden, who is still a wanted man for his earlier faked diamond robbery. So, Rearden is again forced to flee, but manages to follow Wheeler to a church where he and Slade are holding Mrs Smith. He pulls a gun on them, and orders them to hand over Mrs Smith. Presented with a Mexican standoff, Wheeler and Slade try to persuade Rearden to let them go unharmed, in return for which they will also spare him and Mrs Smith. Reluctantly Rearden agrees, but Mrs Smith takes up a gun and shoots Slade and Wheeler, avenging the murder of her father. She has fulfilled her orders and bitterly abandons Rearden, angry at the way he has not followed his own orders.

The story takes place in London, where Dr. Sabian Blake is sitting in his attic at the top of his house in Bloomsbury Square, looking out to space through his telescope, in search of a special star. He is told about this star by ''The Nemorensis'', an ancient book that holds many old and powerful secrets. It has predicted that the comet Wormwood (which was foretold in the book of Revelation) is hurtling towards the earth, and would spell certain doom for London and all other lands around her. As Blake is observing this, a series of cataclysmic and destructive events, referred to as a 'sky-quake', hits the city, the aftermath of which involves horses and dogs going completely mad and attacking everyone in sight. The reason for these happenings was that the power of the Keruvim was being used in the north by the evil Pyratheon, in his vain attempt to overthrow Riathamus. We are then introduced to Agetta Lamian, Blake's servant-girl, whose father Cadmus Lamian owns a lodging house on Fleet Street.

Eventually it transpires that Pyratheon's evil sister, Yerzinia, is using the Nemorensis to call down the comet and reshape the devastated London in her own, dark image.

Khan, a Nong Khai native now attending university in Bangkok comes home for the annual Naga fireballs festival, just as a debate is raging over the cause of the fireballs. A local physician, Dr. Nortai, believes there is a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. A university professor, Dr. Suraphol, thinks the fireballs are manmade and are a hoax.

Khan knows the truth: Having grown up as a dek wat at a Buddhist temple across the river in Laos, he helped the temple's abbot and the monks there to create fireballs and plant them on the bed on the Mekong. It is how he grew up to become such a strong swimmer and obtain an athletic scholarship.

The temple's abbot, Luang Poh Loh, seeks Khan out and begs him to once again help with the planting of the fireballs. But Khan, weary of perpetuating a myth and of the crowds that accompany it, refuses.

This sets up a conflict between science and religion that threatens to change the annual celebration.

For his part, Luang Poh Loh is philosophical, advising "Do what you believe, believe in what you do."

Theodore "Ted" Crawford, a wealthy Irish aeronautical engineer living in Los Angeles, confirms that his wife, Jennifer, is having an affair with police detective Robert Nunally. Confronting his wife, Crawford shoots her. Police are called, including Nunally, who enters the house cautiously, negotiating with Crawford for both to put down their guns. Crawford confesses he shot his wife. Recognizing the victim, and being subtly goaded by Crawford, Nunally becomes enraged and assaults him.

Now in jail awaiting trial, Crawford engages in a battle of wits with rising star deputy district attorney William "Willy" Beachum, who considers the case an open-and-shut matter and agrees to go to trial immediately. Beachum is preparing to transition from criminal law to a corporate attorneyship at well-known law firm Wooton Sims, and flirts with his future boss, Nikki Gardner.

At the trial, Crawford acts as his own attorney, thereby matching himself, an untrained litigant, against a star prosecutor. Crawford informs the court that the arresting officer (Nunally) was having an affair with his wife, assaulted him during his arrest, and was present during his interrogation. Crawford's confession is therefore ruled inadmissible as evidence, being fruit of the poisonous tree. Beachum discovers that Crawford's handgun could not have been used in the shooting because it does not match shell casings at the crime scene and in fact has never been fired. This baffles police, since CCTV surveillance was in use during the shooting and until Crawford's arrest.

Nunally comes up with a scheme to plant false evidence to implicate Crawford, which Beachum rejects. With no new evidence to present, Beachum has to concede the trial is lost, and Crawford is acquitted. Disgraced, Nunally commits suicide outside the court.

Beachum's future with the prestigious law firm is now in tatters. However, he begins to see his DA job as a means to fight for justice for those such as Crawford's wife. Crawford himself observes the change, commenting sarcastically that Beachum has "found God". This motivates Beachum to continue searching for evidence, almost obsessively. Realizing that Crawford's plan is to dispose of the only eyewitness to the crime, Beachum obtains a court order to keep Jennifer on life support. He arrives at the hospital, but is unable to prevent staff turning off her life support.

A mix-up of cell phones causes Beachum to realize that Nunally and Crawford both used the same type of gun, a .45 caliber Glock 21. He figures out that before the crime Crawford must have switched his and Nunally's guns in the hotel room where Jennifer and Nunally secretly met. Crawford had shot his wife with Nunally's gun, then reloaded it. The detective had arrived on the scene carrying Crawford's gun, and both had put down their weapons as a preliminary move in negotiations. When Nunally had recognized Jennifer, rushing over to her, Crawford had switched the guns again, retrieving his own, unused, weapon. When Crawford had reappeared brandishing his gun, Nunally tackled and assaulted him, before Crawford's arrest. Nunally had then unwittingly holstered the murder weapon, allowing the unused gun to be taken as evidence.

Beachum confronts Crawford with his deductions. With Jennifer now dead, the bullet lodged in her head can now be retrieved and matched with Nunally's gun. Crawford confesses, confident he is protected by the principle of double jeopardy. However, Beachum dryly informs him that by allowing his wife to die, Crawford can now be prosecuted for murder, having previously been tried merely for attempted murder. Since he had taken Jennifer off life support, new charges can be filed against Crawford and a new trial can be held. Crawford is arrested by waiting police.

The film ends with a new trial about to begin, with Beachum prosecuting and Crawford surrounded by a team of highly paid defense attorneys.

The platoon arrive at the church hall and load their equipment onto Jones' van, ready for a weekend exercise. The exercise concerns guerrilla warfare, the objective of the exercise is to transport a highly important agent (Mainwaring) to a selected destination while avoiding the best efforts of the mock enemy to capture him. The importance of the exercise does not stop Godfrey and Wilson bringing a few luxurious items, to the consternation of Mainwaring.

Mainwaring briefs the men on the exercise, and takes the opportunity to ridicule Captain Square and the Eastgate platoon's efforts the previous weeks (he was captured after only an hour). Unbeknownst to Mainwaring, the Verger and Warden Hodges are watching them, discussing their plans to sabotage the platoon's efforts, on the orders of Captain Square who has offered them a pound each to foil Mainwaring.

The platoon embark on the exercise with various adventures, making surprisingly good progress and managing to avoid the schemings of Hodges and the Verger, who, while walking through some woodland, are suddenly pursued by what appears to be a gorilla. Meanwhile, a man in a white coat approaches Mainwaring with a story about a missing gorilla, trained by the War Office for war work. Sensing a ploy, the platoon are very dismissive of this information, even when Hodges, having taken refuge in a tree, tells them of the animal he has encountered.

While the platoon are spending a night in an outlying barn, the gorilla hides in the straw unobserved, and later disappears - arriving at GHQ it is revealed to be an officer in disguise, spying on the platoon. Here Frazer tells the men the 'Story of the Auld Empty Barn' ("There was nothing in it!"). The following morning Mainwaring and his men attempt the final leg of the exercise, to transport Mainwaring to the special destination. Pressed for time, they commandeer Hodges motorbike, Mainwaring and Jones to proceed alone with the rest of the men following in the van.

Hodges returns, having called the RSPCA and summoned their help. They have provided him with a large hypodermic, though Mainwaring still brushes aside any suggestion of a gorilla, until it suddenly appears brandishing a revolver. We next see it sitting on the back of the motorbike with him travelling along at high speed. A panicking Jones sticks the hypodermic in Mainwaring by mistake, causing him to lose control and head off the road, and Jones manages to get hold of the pistol. As the rest of the platoon and the Colonel arrive, the gorilla implores him not to shoot revealing himself as an army officer. The Colonel congratulates them on winning the exercise, while a slumped Mainwaring passes out.

Jones and Pike are out on patrol and whilst recreating a childhood prank, Pike gets his head stuck in the park gates. Mainwaring is in the church hall, conducting an interview and photo session with Mr Cheeseman, a member of the local press who is temporarily joining the platoon to report on its activities. Alerted by Jones, Mainwaring comes to rescue Pike - unable to free him, they lift the gates off their hinges and carry them back to the church hall with Pike still trapped within them.

Once there, after securing Pike's gate to the ceiling with rope, they discover an emergency meeting in the office by the town elders (namely the Vicar, Warden Hodges, Inspector Baker and Fire Officer Dale) and learn that Walmington-on-Sea is in the grip of a crisis. The railway line has been heavily bombed, leaving the water, telephone and other vital services damaged. The town is, in effect, totally cut off. Realising that the bickering committee are not providing effective leadership, Mainwaring orders his men to fix bayonets and steps in, effectively performing a coup d'etat and putting the town under martial law. Hodges implores Inspector Baker to arrest him, but Mainwaring points out that they are up against 16 fully armed men.

He begins issuing a number of stringent edicts to Wilson and Jones to shout from their bicycles, including: all looters being shot, all rumour-mongers, defeatists and those not following military law being imprisoned and for no liquor to be sold or baths to be taken without a permit, which Frazer supports (mainly because Mainwaring has given him responsibility for alcohol permits). Then gathering his men behind him, Mainwaring marches on the town hall to take control of the town, denying accusations that he is behaving like "the dictator of some South American Banana republic". Jones has been given responsibility for bath permits, and old Mr. Bluett comes in, enquiring about how the system works.

Pike is still stuck in the gates, and several passers-by wrongly assume this is some form of harsh punishment by Mainwaring. Despite the confident manner he had departed in, Mainwaring returns from his attempt to seize the town hall, indignantly explaining it was shut by the town clerk. He assures that he will "deal with him in the morning". Frazer and Wilson say that he is behaving like a tyrant, and usurping the power of the land, but Mainwaring again denies it.

However, when a tough officer, Captain Swan, from GHQ arrives to take over command from him, implementing much the same policies as he had, Mainwaring is himself outraged and the episode ends with him being locked out of his own office, thanks to Frazer telling Swan where the office is. Wilson laughs at Mainwaring's hypocritical nature.

The platoon are practising their morris dance in the church hall. Mainwaring notices that Corporal Jones is not his usual self. A few minutes later, Jones asks for a heart to heart with Mainwaring. He reveals that his paramour, the widowed Mrs Fox, has become involved with another man - Mr Gordon, the town clerk, who Sergeant Wilson describes as "a bald-headed old duffer", much to Mainwaring's annoyance. Jones implores his commander to do something about it.

Reluctantly, Mainwaring agrees to meet with Mrs Fox in the Marigold Tea Rooms - unfortunately, a large portion of the platoon is crowded into the cafe to watch, sensing a scandalous affair. Mainwaring is distinctly embarrassed by the whole thing; he is clearly made uncomfortable by the overly forward Mrs Fox, who he describes as a "flashy woman".

Mainwaring tries to speak to her on Jones' behalf, but when he subtly refers to a new bald-headed admirer, she assumes he means himself - and in the process mistakenly believes he is trying to proposition her. She offers to let Mainwaring have Tuesdays and Thursdays, whilst letting Jones have Mondays and Fridays. When a shocked Mainwaring points out he is talking about Mr Gordon, she says "well he can have Wednesdays". The whole meeting leads to speculation through the town that the two are involved, rumours which reach the ears of Mrs Mainwaring.

The same evening, Mainwaring is giving a lecture in the office, when they become curious about what is happening in the adjoining church hall. They enter to find the Vicar, Verger, Warden Hodges and Town Clerk are holding trials for a Lady Godiva to ride at the head of the coming Spitfire Fund procession. While Mainwaring is outraged and appalled, Hodges tells him not to be so 'Victorian'. Mrs Fox meanwhile persuades Mr Gordon to use his influence to allow her to play the part.

The choice of Mrs Fox causes quite some consternation amongst the womenfolk of the town. Mrs Pike for instance berates Wilson for allowing this to happen, noting she is "much slimmer" than Mrs Fox, while Mrs Mainwaring, clearly suspicious her husband is conducting some sort of affair with Mrs Fox, constantly rings him at the bank and church hall demanding to know why she has not been chosen to play the part. Jones meanwhile is distraught, convinced he has now lost Mrs Fox to Mr Gordon.

On the day of the procession, the platoon are readying themselves for their morris dance. At that moment a tearful Mrs Fox arrives, and falls into the arms of Jones. Somebody has stolen the Lady Godiva costume from her at the town hall. Fraser disappointedly notes that they will not get to see a Lady Godiva after all.

Just then, Pike announces that a Godiva is going down the high street. It is assumed that Mrs Pike has stolen the costume and Mainwaring chides Wilson "can't you keep that woman under control?". However, when he looks out the window and sees that it is instead Mrs Mainwaring who has taken the part, a shocked and distraught Mainwaring faints into Jones' arms.

Wilson and Mrs Pike are having tea waiting for Frank to come home from his call-up medical. When Frank arrives home, his mother is unpleasantly surprised when he tells her that he has passed A1 (in spite of his chronically bad chest, his painful sinuses, his weak ankles and recently acquired nervous twitch), and has requested to be put in the RAF. At the evening's parade, Mainwaring and the platoon are deciding what to do to celebrate Private Pike's departure. They decide to have a dinner at the Fish and Chip restaurant.

Later on, Mainwaring is having a meeting with representatives of the blood donor service who ask him how many pints of blood he and the platoon will be able to donate. He originally says 50, but after learning that the Wardens have also promised 50, he then changes his mind and says 100. Mainwaring soon discovers he has bitten off more than he can chew, as all but two members of the platoon (Mainwaring himself and Pike) are ineligible to donate blood due to medical conditions or being overage. Hodges arrives to rub it in to Mainwaring, but is interrupted by Corporal Jones, who states that he has been down to the POW camp and gathered 80 Italian soldiers. Hodges then states that he still wins because he reached his target. Jones then replies that he has not, as he has also brought down 17 nuns as well. With Mainwaring, Pike and the Vicar making donations as well, it brings the total for the platoon to 100 pints. Meanwhile, one of the doctors has discovered that Private Pike's blood type is so rare that you will not find another one like him in 10,000.

Later, the platoon are sitting in the restaurant having the fish and chip dinner in honour of Pike. After Wilson says a few words, Pike says that he would like to tell them all a funny story. He mentions the results of the blood drive and how rare his blood type is, and that if he was wounded in the Air Force, they would not be able to provide him with a blood transfusion. Frazer remarks that "so far the story hasn't been highly comic". Then, Pike adds that because of his rare blood type, the RAF will not have him and so he is not leaving, and the reason he didn't want to tell the platoon straight away is because he had never had a dinner in his honour before. Mainwaring responds with "You stupid boy!"

It is three months since Swallows Bank was bombed and Captain Mainwaring is keenly anticipating the arrival of his new office door (the last having been destroyed by bomb damage). He is disappointed, however, to discover the replacement is made out of paper. Various misfortunes occur to it, leaving the door in ruins in a matter of minutes.

The Colonel arrives and informs Mainwaring that Private Godfrey's cottage is to be flattened to make way for a new aerodrome. Mainwaring summons Jones and Frazer to the bank and tries to work out how best to break the news to Godfrey. Mainwaring resolves to go and inform Godfrey personally. He, Pike and Wilson walk out to pay a call to Cherry Tree Cottage, only to be invited to stay for tea. During the visit Mainwaring repeatedly puts off telling Godfrey, and finally tries to shift the responsibility, and make Wilson tell him, a job his Sergeant shirks. The three of them depart the cottage, with Godfrey seemingly none the wiser about his home's intended fate.

Next Mainwaring tries to persuade Jones and Frazer to do the deed as the two oldest members of the platoon. Frazer abandons Jones, leaving him to tell Godfrey alone. Slightly awkwardly, Jones begins a rambling and convoluted explanation - only to find that Godfrey already knows, having received official notification several days before. He innocuously mentions that he meant to tell Captain Mainwaring, but he did not want to "upset him". Jones offers to let Godfrey stay with him, which he accepts.

Later, Frazer makes a call to the home of the government minister in charge of building the new aerodrome, Sir Charles Renfrew McAllister, in the middle of the night - and threatens him with exposure for his youthful transgressions if he does not re-consider the scheme.

The next day, the platoon helps to load the furniture into ARP Warden Hodges' van as he prepares to move out, with a melancholic Godfrey and his sisters watching their possessions being carried away. However, Frazer arrives, bearing news of the official decision to shift the aerodrome several hundred yards, meaning that Godfrey's cottage will now be on the edge of it rather than in the middle. The platoon respond with delight, leaving Hodges annoyed at losing out on the fee for use of his van.

The episode ends with a tea party at Godfrey's cottage, in which he thanks Mainwaring for saving his house, unaware that it was in fact Frazer who was responsible. Suddenly, the tea party - which is being held on the lawn of the cottage - is interrupted by a plane which has just taken off from the aerodrome blowing everyone and everything around the garden.

Because of a double-booking, the platoon are forced to use the Vicar's Garden for a parade. However Mainwaring's attempts to give them a serious lecture on fieldcraft, are interrupted by the persistent concerns of Mr Blewitt. As Mainwaring tries to demonstrate the use of the platoons new bivouac tents, and the best way to eat a hedgehog, Mr Blewitt objects to their "improper" use of the Vicar's Garden. The scene ends with the platoon almost accidentally setting fire to the lawn.

The following weekend the platoon are in the countryside to try out their bivouac tents. To Mainwaring's annoyance, the Chief Warden's van appears as he has brought out the Sea Scouts for a camp of their own. This will interfere with the platoon's male bonding, as "comrades under the stars", and he suspects Hodges has brought them to that specific spot to deliberately upset him. The joke is on Hodges, however, when he runs out of petrol and is forced to spend the night out there as well.

In the night, a Nazi plane appears overhead on fire, and they get up with their rifles. However, there is nothing they can do about it, and go back to bed. The following morning, they spot three Nazi pilots floating on a rubber dinghy in the middle of the nearby lake, clearly having bailed out of the plane the previous night. Requisitioning the Sea Scouts boat, Mainwaring and his men go out to parley with the pilots, using Hodges as an interpreter because of his knowledge of German. Their efforts meet ridicule and the Germans do not surrender, and instead laugh when Hodges falls in the water. It appears the Germans are waiting for nightfall so they can slip ashore, and escape.

Knowing that they cannot shoot men with their hands up, the platoon come up with an elaborate plan involving Jones swimming underwater and bursting the dinghy with his bayonet. With predictably disastrous results, the plan goes wrong, and Hodges once again falls into the water. This time he is taken prisoner by the German raft, who then proceed to open fire on the British boat. An angry Mainwaring draws his pistol and orders his own men to "Let 'em have it men!", but Wilson points out they will hit Hodges.

Pike comes to the rescue, firing a number of arrows into the dinghy, causing it to start sinking. At last the Germans, realising the game is up, try to surrender. Mainwaring shouts out to Hodges "ask the Germans if they can swim" to which Hodges replies "never mind them! I'm the one who can't swim!"

A gay community in Fire Island provides an unlikely setting for two straight couples spending the Fourth of July weekend in a house inherited by Sally from her brother who died of AIDS. Through monologues unheard by the others, the characters reveal a desperate sense of individual isolation. The only people these four characters find more alien are the unseen gay men partying in the houses on either side of them. "As they divert themselves from their own mortality with food, cocktails, the ''New York Times'' crossword puzzle, fireworks, charades, and biting jabs at each other and the boys next door, the two couples find little to celebrate about themselves or their country on its birthday."

In ''Earthly Delights'', the story begins with the death of the player's uncle, whom they've not seen for many years, and the unusual inheritance received from him — a portrait of a beautiful woman entitled ''Earthly Delight''. The uncle writes that pleasures and rewards will come to the player if they keep the picture, and exhorts them not to sell it. When a stranger approaches the player offering an enormous sum for the work, their suspicions are aroused and the adventure of ''Earthly Delights'' begins.

The introduction to the game describes the painting as "Parrish's ''Earthly Delight''", alluding to American painter Maxfield Parrish. This allusion is supported by the painting's depiction on the cover, which mimics the mountainous landscape of Parrish's ''Canyon'' and female subject in flowing dress common in his works. Though Parrish never created a piece named ''Earthly Delight'', Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch painted a triptych named ''The Garden of Earthly Delights'' in the early 16th century.

A pair of hitmen drive to Eddie Macklin's house and kill him as he builds a brick wall in his backyard. Eddie's brother Earl is released from prison in Illinois after a 27-month term for carrying a concealed weapon. His girlfriend Bett picks him up and takes him to a motel. She informs Earl of his brother's execution by the Outfit. Earl realises that the motel stay is a setup, and when one of the hitmen who killed his brother bursts into the room, Earl ambushes him and tortures him for information.

Macklin lets the hitman live and sends him back to Chicago as a warning. Bett confesses that the Outfit tortured her and threatened to cut off her face if she didn't lure Earl to the motel. His next move is to rob a poker game where Outfit member Jake Menner is playing. Menner explains that the bank that Eddie and Earl robbed together was an Outfit cover, so the contract on the two of them is simple retribution. Macklin calculates that the Outfit owes him $250,000 for the trouble it has caused him. He says whatever he earns by ripping off the Outfit's operations in the meantime is just gravy. Then, he shoots Menner in the hand as revenge for the treatment of Bett.

Menner tells his boss Mailer that the Outfit has a problem, but Mailer insists that it is Menner's problem to solve. The hitmen who killed Eddie are sent to kill Macklin's old partner Cody at a diner that he owns. Cody gets them to leave by pointing out that the town sheriff is there; then he and Macklin hatch a plan to keep robbing the Outfit, using Bett as a driver. Their next target is a dive restaurant that does not even have a safe. On their way out with the money, the cook throws his cleaver at Cody and three gunmen lie in wait outside the restaurant. Bett mows two of them down and the trio escapes.

Macklin and Cody go to Chemey to get a new car, since theirs has been made. Chemey's sister-in-law makes a pass at Cody. When he turns her down, she claims that he tried to rape her. That causes a physical confrontation that Chemey manages to deflate, allowing Cody and Macklin to leave in their new car.

Their next target is a much bigger operation. Cody poses as a mailman, and Macklin as a maintenance man. They knock out a secretary and make their way into a warren of back rooms where they rob the safe. Macklin and Cody then corner Mailer at a horse auction. He amiably agrees to pay the $250,000, but he warns Macklin to stop knocking off his businesses.

Mailer is furious that Macklin was able to be "close enough to touch" him. He orders him killed. At the payoff, Macklin quickly realizes it is a setup and that the briefcase is filled with newspaper instead of money. He and Cody manage to escape by tripping a fire alarm, enraging Mailer further.

Cody and Macklin plan an assault on Mailer's well-guarded home. Cody warns that it will be easy to get in but nearly impossible to get out. They hijack one of the Outfit's cars and use it to get past the gates. Inside the house, Cody plants a bomb under a table. The duo goes upstairs to hunt for Mailer, who spies Cody in his shaving mirror. He manages to ambush Cody, shooting him in the gut. Macklin is waiting for Mailer in the hallway—the still-conscious Cody shoots Mailer in the back, then Macklin finishes Mailer.

Once the bomb goes off, Macklin puts on a white medical coat and helps Cody out of the house. The police, fire department, and an ambulance have arrived. Posing as a medic, Macklin puts Cody into the back of an ambulance, and they laugh about how easy it was to escape.

In 1985, Cinnamon Brown kills her stepmother by shooting her. Although she confessed to the crime, the lack of motive propels investigators to delve deeper into the case, and discover that there is far more to it than originally thought.

Sam Gribley is a 12-year-old boy who intensely dislikes living in his parents' cramped New York City apartment with his eight brothers and sisters. He decides to run away to his great-grandfather's abandoned farm in the Catskill Mountains to live in the wilderness. The novel begins in the middle of Sam's story, with Sam huddled in his treehouse home in the forest during a severe blizzard. Frightful, Sam's pet peregrine falcon, and The Baron, a weasel, share the home with him. In a flashback, Sam reminisces about how he came to be there.

Sam heard about his grandfather's abandoned farm near Delhi, New York, learned wilderness survival skills by reading a book at the New York City Public Library, and how Sam's father permitted him to go to Delhi so long as Sam let people in the town know that he is staying at the farm . Unable at first to locate the farm, Sam tries to survive on his own but finds his skills are not up to the task. He meets Bill, a man living in a cabin in the woods, who teaches him how to make a fire. Sam goes into town and is told where his grandfather's land is. Sam finds the farm but discovers the farmhouse is no longer standing.

Sam forages for edible plants and traps animals for food. He uses fire to make the interior of the hollow tree bigger. Seeing a peregrine falcon hunting for prey, Sam decides he wants a falcon as a hunting bird. Sam goes to town and reads up on falconry at the local public library. He steals a chick from a falcon's nest and names the bird Frightful. Later, Sam hides in the woods for two days after a forest ranger, spotting the smoke from Sam's cooking fire, came to investigate.

In the fall, Sam makes a box trap to catch animals to eat, and catches a weasel. Sam calls the weasel The Baron for the regal way the animal moves about. When a poacher illegally kills a deer, Sam steals the carcass, smokes the meat, and tans the hides. Frightful proves very good at hunting. Sam prepares for winter by hunting, preserving wild grains and tubers, smoking fish and meat, and preparing storage spaces in hollowed-out trunks of trees. Finding another poached deer, Sam makes himself deerskin clothing to replace his worn-out clothes. Sam notices a raccoon digging for mussels in the creek and learns how to hunt for shellfish.

One day, Sam returns home and finds a man there. Believing the man is a criminal, he nicknames him "Bando" (an alternative version of "bandit"). The man is actually a professor of English literature and is lost. Bando spends 10 days with Sam building a raft, fishing, teaching him how to make jam, and showing him how to make a whistle out of a willow branch. Sam agrees to come to town at Christmas to visit Bando.

Sam makes a clay fireplace to keep his home warm. Sam steals two more dead deer from local hunters to make more clothes, begins rapidly storing as many fruits and nuts as he can, and builds his fireplace. Sam almost dies after he insulates his home too well, trapping carbon dioxide inside. Sick with carbon dioxide poisoning, Sam barely gets out alive. Sam returns to town just before Christmas. He meets Tom Sidler, a teenager who ridicules his appearance. Sam spends the night with Bando, who shows him the many newspaper articles about the "wild boy" living in the forest. Sam returns home and is surprised on Christmas Day by the arrival of his father. They are overjoyed to see one another again. Sam learns how animals behave in winter, even during blizzards. He overcomes a vitamin deficiency by eating the right foods.

In the spring, Matt Spell, a local teenager who wants to be a reporter, arrives at Sam's treehouse home. Sam doesn't want to be interviewed, but offers Matt a deal: Matt can come live with him for a week if Matt will not reveal his location. Matt agrees. A few weeks later, Bando visits Sam and they build a guest house. Matt spends a week with Sam, and at the end tells Sam he broke his promise. A short time later, Tom Sidler visits the farm and Sam realizes he is desperate for human companionship.

When Bando returns to check on Sam, Sam says he intends to return to New York City to visit his family. In June, Sam is surprised to find his family at the farm. His father announces that the family is moving to the farm. Sam is happy at first, then also upset because it means the end of his self-sufficiency. As the novel ends, Sam concludes that life is about balancing his desire to live off the land with his desire to be with the people he loves.

At the beginning of summer break, A young man named Naoto Jinno asked Rika Manabe, his girlfriend, to go out with him, planning to propose to her, only for his attempt to do so be interrupted by Asmodeus and Luvriel, commanders of a holy conflict, with Naoto and Rika helping Luvriel recover after she is defeated. As a result, Rika becomes a Devil Angel, an angelic warrior who fights using Amore, gathered through the act of making love, something Naoto is fairly happy to do.

In the second game, and its related anime, Hikari Jinno, his sister who was studying overseas, comes to visit, at the same time as Rococo, Asmodeus's sister, decides to attack Rika in revenge for Asmodeus's defeat, turning her into a demonic version of a Devil Angel, causing Hikari to end up a Devil Angel, with Naoto slightly more reluctantly, at first, generating Amore within her, and they manage to purify Rika and defeat Rococo.

In the third game, Naoto finds himself helping test out the New Angelic Gaia Interface, in the form of a blue haired girl, when a new antagonist, pretending to be a photography student, lures Rika and Hikari into a trap that sees Hikari corrupted and Rika unable to help. Due to NAGI's digital nature, she is able to regenerate from damage and take greater risks, which is needed when the demons deploy the first completely robotic devil...

The fourth game has a different concept, with Luvriel having established a school for potential Devil Angels, recruits Momo Sakura, Aoi Ayonokouji and Yuzuha Hoshikawa, also known as Spica, Althaea and Junos, to defend it from a pair of non-identical twin devils, Meimei and Maimai.

The fifth game was an anniversary title, featuring the casts of Makai Tenshi DJibril 3 and DJibril 4 meeting when Luvriel goes to see the Jinnos, only for them to be thrown into a parallel version of Sengoku Japan, with the various Devil Angels taking on personalities that were based on famous Japanese heroes as they try to figure out how to get back to the present.

The sixth, and currently final, game has Luvriel having re-established her school, this time placing the campus within cyberspace, with the assistance of Rika Manabe. However, where there are angels, there will always be demons...

When several members of the GraveDiggers outlaw motorcycle club are murdered, Sydney detective Stone (Ken Shorter) is sent to investigate. Led by the Undertaker (Sandy Harbutt), a Vietnam war veteran, the GraveDiggers allow Stone to pose as a gang member. Leaving behind society girlfriend Amanda (Helen Morse), Stone begins to identify with the Undertaker and his comrades Hooks (Roger Ward), Toad (Hugh Keays-Byrne), Dr Death (Vincent Gil), Captain Midnight (Bindi Williams), Septic (Dewey Hungerford) and Vanessa (Rebecca Gilling), the Undertaker’s girlfriend. Amid violent confrontations with the Black Hawks, a rival gang the GraveDiggers hold responsible, Stone uncovers a political conspiracy behind the killings. When the truth is revealed, Stone must choose between his job and his loyalty to the GraveDiggers.

Searching for his missing daughter Sophia in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, from which she was abducted several months earlier, William Keane confronts ticket agents and random passersby with a newspaper account of her disappearance, but no one recalls seeing the little girl. After spending the night wandering the streets and sleeping along the side of the highway, he returns to the cheap hotel where he is living and finds he is unable to get into his room. The desk clerk tells him his payment is in arrears, and Keane covers the cost of another week's stay with a disability check.

Alone in his hotel room, Keane drinks beer and talks to himself about his ex-wife and the birth of their daughter, and he reads the clippings about another abducted New Jersey girl who was found and reunited with her parents he keeps in an envelope. He makes contact with a drug dealer and purchases cocaine, and the more he ingests the more paranoid he becomes, certain he is being followed and watched and even going so far as physically attacking a man he believed was watching him. He goes to a nightclub and snorts coke with a woman named Michelle, then has sex in a bathroom stall with her.

Back at his motel, Keane meets Lynn Bedik and her daughter Kira, who is close in age to his missing child. Lynn clearly is having financial difficulties, and he insists she take the $100 he offers her. She asks Keane to watch Kira for a few hours, then calls the motel and leaves a message she will not be returning that night as planned. Keane reassures a despondent Kira, who fears Lynn has abandoned her, that her mother loves her and will be back.

The following day, Keane takes Kira to a local indoor skating rink and teaches her how to ice skate. While they are playing skee ball in the adjacent arcade, Keane believes he is being watched by another patron and becomes agitated. Kira manages to calm him and they return to the motel. When Lynn arrives later, she explains she was with Kira's father Eric, who has arranged for them to move to Albany, New York, where he has found a job.

Desperate not to lose Kira because she reminds him so much of Sophia, Keane goes to her school, takes her without permission, and brings her with him to the Port Authority, allegedly to meet her mother there and board a bus to Albany. There he sends her to buy candies, as his daughter had done several months earlier, just minutes before she was abducted. It seems as if Keane is reviving the tragic loss of his daughter, perhaps expecting the abductor to show up again and try this time to abduct Kira too — as he was expecting him to show up every time he was visiting the station for all those months, imagining his plan and his schedule. This doesn't happen. He cries for his losses and decides to really get her to her mother. Kira tells him she loves him and he says he loves her too.