The setting is a small fishing village. The former seaman Longren raises his daughter Assol alone after losing his beloved wife, making a meager living by selling the toy boats he carves from wood. As a child, Assol encounters an old man who claims to be a wizard and promises the girl that one day a prince will come on a ship with scarlet sails to carry her away. The villagers scoff but Assol believes her dream will come true one day.

Arthur Grey is a nobleman's son who breaks away from his cruel father to pursue a life at sea, and eventually becomes the captain of a merchant vessel. Having set to port at Assol's village, he spies the young maiden sleeping in the forest and falls in love. After inquiring in the village he learns of Assol's dream and sets about to make it come true.

Ed Earl Dodd, the Sheriff of Gilbert, Texas, has a longstanding relationship with Miss Mona Stangley, who runs a brothel called the "Chicken Ranch" outside of town. Illegal or not, Ed Earl does not interfere with her business, which has been a fixture of the town going back to before World War I.

Occasionally interrupted by Deputy Fred Wilkins, the narrator, Ed Earl and Miss Mona have a pleasant arrangement as secret lovers. Almost everyone in town approves of Miss Mona, a public-minded citizen who regularly donates to charity and is decent and law-abiding except in her line of work.

Mayor Rufus P. Poindexter and insurance salesman/local townsman C.J. Vernon inform Ed Earl that altruistic consumer advocate and television personality Melvin P. Thorpe, originally from New Jersey, announces his intention to do an exposé about the Chicken Ranch. Visiting Thorpe in his Houston studio, Ed Earl is shocked by Thorpe's live telecast, in which Thorpe sensationalizingly reveals to a huge audience, "Texas has a whorehouse in it." He later compounds the problem by insulting and threatening Thorpe in the town square after Thorpe comes to town and accuses him of taking payoffs and bribes for not cracking down on Miss Mona's business, all caught on TV.

The Chicken Ranch is an institution, one where the winning team of the football game between state rivals the University of Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies traditionally comes to "celebrate" its victory. Thorpe's negative publicity puts a spotlight on the place, so Ed Earl asks Miss Mona to shutter the property until the TV attention subsides in two months. She closes the bordello to her regular customers, but elects to allow the football players have their victory party. Thorpe and his TV cameras infiltrate the property, break into the house, and catch the Aggies and a State Senator on tape in mid-debauch. Ed Earl and Miss Mona quarrel, punctuated by him calling her "a whore", and then bitterly break up.

The Governor of Texas, who cannot decide on any issue until he first sees what voters say in opinion polls, listens to Ed Earl's eloquent appeal to keep the Chicken Ranch open. However, when the polls say a bare majority of Texans disapprove of the place, he orders Ed Earl to close it down. The working girls sadly leave the Chicken Ranch immediately and permanently. Miss Mona is disconsolate, at least until learning what Ed Earl did for her to attempt to keep it open.

As Miss Mona is departing the whorehouse for the last time, Ed Earl stops her and proposes. She turns him down, knowing that having a wife who had once run a whorehouse would hurt his chances of running for the state legislature. He insists that he wants to marry her, regardless of what people will think or say. To drive his point home, he picks up Miss Mona like a bridegroom, installs her in the passenger seat of the pickup, and drives away.

In an epilogue, Deputy Fred, who succeeded Ed Earl as the Sheriff, states that Ed Earl and Miss Mona married and that Ed Earl successfully ran for the legislature, becoming a State Senator.

After Homer leaves the family stuck at the hospital for hours because Marge couldn't contact him to bring in their health insurance card, she insists Homer purchase a cell phone. Homer quickly goes overboard with fun devices to go along with his new phone, but unfortunately that leads into a one-car accident caused by his recklessness, forcing Marge to do all the driving when Homer somewhat unfairly has his driver's license revoked. Homer is forced to walk everywhere, and despite being bitter at first, he begins to enjoy his new method of travel.

As Homer begins to enjoy walking, Marge begins finding her duty of driving everyone places increasingly stressful. One day, as Homer walks with other Springfieldians, Marge accidentally runs him over with her car.

As Homer is now completely reliant on Marge to care for him, their relationship suffers after Marge spills hot soup on Homer and then kicks out the cane he is using, leading a horrified Homer to state that Marge is now trying to hurt him on purpose. Marge admits she hates him, not only for losing his driver's license, but also for now taking her for granted. They see a marriage counselor who advises them to write down the people important to their lives, but Homer just writes his own name. As Marge sadly leaves, the counselor advises Homer to perform one completely unselfish gesture to win Marge back. Homer invites all the people of Springfield (except for the Flanders family, whom Homer tricks them into thinking Jesus wants to meet them in Montana) to the Simpson house for a backyard barbecue in Marge's honor.

Marge—returning in a foul mood after driving—walks to the backyard and is welcomed by everyone. After the barbecue, Marge tells Homer that she loves him. Homer and the other guests, including Jackson Browne, toast her before Homer turns on the sprinklers once dinner is over to get everyone to clear out.

Jim Killian arrives at the town of Vinegaroon, which is divided between cattlemen and sheepherders. Asa Beck, a leading cattleman, his son Coke and his cowhands, harass the sheepherders, attack and even murder them. The sheepherders are ready for retaliation. Both parties, knowing of Killian's ability, try to hire him. Killian summons them to the town for a meeting. There, everyone finds out that Killian has become a preacher, and has just opened his church in a barn. He tells them that he'll protect everyone in his church's surroundings and that there will be no killing unless he does it, which he proves by shooting two of Beck's cowhands who hadn't believed his words and had drawn their guns.

The following Sunday, all the people from the town and its surroundings go to the service. Killian uses the occasion to demonstrate that cattle and sheep can be kept together and share the water sources, same as people of all kinds can live together.

Asa Beck has brought a man called Mace, who reveals before the people that Killian not only is a colleague gunslinger but an ex-convict, guilty of murder. Still, Killian's standing before the people remains strong. Paterson, a cattleman, and Murdock, a sheepherder, decide to follow his advice.

Killian has taken under his protection a half American-half Native American girl named Leloopa, whose father was killed by Coke Beck, unbeknownst to them. In a moment in which Killian is talking with his old friend Madge McCloud, the madam of the local saloon and brothel, and with her girls about the cattlemen vs. sheepherders situation, Leloopa is raped by Coke Beck. When he realizes what happened, and before the town's people, Killian beats Coke unconscious.

Scotty Andrews, a sheepherder that had been viciously and repeatedly attacked by the Becks is out for revenge. He manages to stab Coke to death through the neck with his wool shears. Asa Beck declares war against everyone who doesn't follow him, orders three of his cowhands to burn Killian's church, and Mace to kill the preacher.

After surviving Mace's attack and seeing his church burned down, Killian grabs a gun and prepares to act as a gunslinger, since praying is not working.

Madge stops Killian and tells him that he must decide to be either a preacher or a gunman — he must choose between Heaven and Hell, or else he is deceiving the community because, how will he teach them about faith when he only trusts in his gun? So, preacher Jim Killian must find a way to stop the impending showdown between cattlemen and sheepherders, armed only with his faith in God and the help of the town's people.

The Yeerks begin to realize the "Andalite bandits" are humans. The Animorphs discover the Yeerks have been testing the DNA patterns in the blood they have left in their countless battles. When they discover the traces of human DNA they begin running massive numbers of tests on blood which has been stored in the area in order to discover a genetic match or root out the Animorphs' families. Using this process, a genetic match between Tobias and his mother, Loren, is discovered and gives the Yeerks proof that at least some of the "Andalite bandits" are, in fact, human. They go through a brutal battle at the laboratory where they discover this information in which Marco is nearly killed. After they retreat to Cassie's barn, Jake orders that they all go home and "sleep on it." The Animorphs will meet in the morning to decide whether or not to evacuate their families, thereby revealing their identities and taking the fight into the open. This decision, however, later proves very costly for Jake.

Tobias does not return to his meadow but goes to the address the blood databank gave for his mother. He is crestfallen to discover that it is only a few blocks from the house in which he lived with his uncle, yet his mother never once came to visit him or showed any interest in her son at all. Tobias easily spots that she is already being watched by the Yeerks. He observes Loren leaving the house with a seeing-eye dog and quickly realizes that Loren is blind. With the guide dog, Champ, she walks to a church where she apparently volunteers as a crisis phone line operator, and Tobias follows her.

In the morning, the Animorphs unanimously vote to immediately evacuate their families. Through somewhat comical sequences of events, Cassie and Rachel reveal to their families the truth of the invasion and evacuate them to the Hork-Bajir valley. Marco helps with evacuating Cassie's mother and father, and Ax helps with evacuating Rachel's mother and sisters. Jake then tries to evacuate his parents, as well, with Tobias and Ax's help, the plan being to subdue Tom and starve the Yeerk out of him, at long last freeing Jake's brother. But they appear to be out of the house when the Animorphs arrive. In fact, Tom's Yeerk has already had Jake's parents infested, and they spring a trap for the waiting Animorphs. They escape, and Jake morphs falcon in front of the Yeerks, because he wants to show that he has been fighting all along to inspire fear in the Yeerks and hope in his family that he will rescue them. Still, after their escape, Jake vents to Tobias and Ax that he regrets telling the rest of the team to sleep on their decision, as he could've saved his parents and Tom by at least evacuating ''them'' the night before. After Ax promises Jake that they will eventually rescue his family "when the time is right," Tobias breaks off from them to go visit Loren again.

Tobias morphs his mother's guide dog and spends the night at his mother's house. In the morning, he finally meets Loren, whom he discovers had lost her memory in an accident years before (an event that Tobias knows was manipulated by the Ellimist). But she knew she did have a son, and hoped that he was happy. Tobias laments the fact that he never knew her, and tells her he needed a mother. Tobias then returns to the Hork-Bajir valley and hatches a scheme to help Loren escape by giving her the morphing power. Jake is resistant to the plan, at first, but ultimately relents, though he does so under the condition that he recruits Rachel and Marco to the plan.

Tobias returns to Loren's house two days later (to make certain that Loren has not already been infested with a Yeerk) with Rachel and Marco's help, and he gives Loren the morphing cube, which grants her the morphing power. She acquires Tobias's DNA, morphs him in hawk form, and they embark on a desperate escape, which leads to another battle that they barely escape. During it, Tobias is nearly killed by a Dracon beam, but Loren puts herself in its path to keep him safe from it, nearly dying in the process. To avoid dying from her injuries, Tobias persuades Loren to demorph, but she is reluctant to do so, as she does not wish to be blind again. However, after convincing her that all of her prior injuries, including her blindness, would also be healed, she ultimately demorphs and is indeed able to see, with every injury from her accident indeed healed. They then complete the battle and escape the Yeerks.

Loren is then evacuated to the Hork-Bajir valley. The morphing ability has restored Loren's vision, but not her memories. Tobias still longs for his mother's love and affection, which she displays for her beloved guide dog, but not for him. However, Tobias remembers that she did throw herself in front of danger to protect him. Later, he concludes the book by assuring Jake that they will rescue his parents. They still have the chance as long as they are alive, as it is clear that Visser One is keeping them that way to lure Jake in.

The book is set in Vienna on one day around the year of its publication, 1985. (p. 193) Reger is an 82-year-old music critic who writes pieces for ''The Times''. For over thirty years he has sat on the same bench in front of Tintoretto's ''White-bearded Man'' in the Bordone Room of the Kunsthistorisches Museum for four or five hours of the morning of every second day. He finds this environment the one in which he can do his best thinking. He is aided in this habit by the gallery attendant Irrsigler, who prevents other visitors from using the bench when Reger requires it.

The book is narrated entirely by Atzbacher, who met Reger in the museum the day before and with whom Reger then arranged to meet again in the museum on this day - thus, exceptionally, visiting the museum on two consecutive days. They had arranged to meet in the Bordone Room at 11.30, but they both arrive early, and the first 170 pages of the book consist of Atzbacher's thoughts and recollections as he surreptitiously watches Reger in his usual position. These are dominated by Reger's thoughts and recollections, as previously related to Atzbacher. Atzbacher tells of the deaths of Reger's wife and sister, and of his contempt for various aspects of Austrian and occasionally German society, including Beethoven, Bruckner, Heidegger and Stifter, the state and "state artists" in general, and the sanitary condition of Viennese toilets. Reger considers the idea of a supposed "perfect" work of art to be unbearable, and so seeks to render them bearable by finding flaws within them.

The second half of the book, once Atzbacher and Reger have met, is formed of the intertwined reports of Reger's speech now, in the museum, with what he had earlier said at a meeting of the two in the Ambassador hotel after his wife's death, and his statements when they had met in Reger's flat before her death. This death of Reger's wife - its circumstances and its effects on him - increasingly dominate the book as it moves towards its conclusion. It is revealed that Reger had first met his wife while sitting on the Bordone Room bench, and that she had then accompanied him on his visits to the museum. It was while walking there in winter that she had suffered an ultimately fatal fall, for which Reger blames the town authorities (for failing to maintain the path), the state (the owner of the museum, which failed to provide timely aid), and the Catholic church, which runs the Merciful Brethren Hospital which Reger believes botched an operation which could have saved her.

Despite his continued attacks on the "Catholic National Socialist" museum and state (p. 301) and his contempt for humanity, exemplified by the conduct of his housekeeper in taking advantage of him after his wife's death, Reger describes how he overcame his initial inclination to suicide and managed to survive her. He found himself let down by art, which proved useless to him at the decisive moment:

Convinced that people are the only possible means of survival, Reger re-engages with the world, aided only by his "misuse" of Schopenhauer (p. 288) and by the ''White-bearded Man'', the only work in the museum to have stood up to his scrutiny for thirty years.

The book concludes with Reger revealing the true purpose of his arranging to meet Atzbacher: to invite him to a performance of ''The Broken Jug'' that evening, despite his own hatred for drama. Atzbacher accepts, reporting that "the performance was terrible".

Bette Davis and Pat O'BrienWhen orphaned Jimmy Mason is taken in by his Aunt Emma and Uncle Henry, he meets their boarder, Matt Kelly, who impresses the young man with his boastful swagger and alleged political connections, although in reality he's a bootlegger.

The boy's life is disrupted when, as one of Kelly's hired hands, he refuses to identify his boss during a police raid and is sentenced to three years of hard labor in reform school, where he befriends a sickly boy named Shorty, who in helping Jimmy, eventually is sent to solitary confinement.

When Jimmy realizes his new pal is seriously ill and desperately needs medical attention, he escapes and goes to Kelly and Kelly's girl friend, Peggy Gardner, for help. Peggy contacts newspaper columnist Frank Gebhardt, who is anxious to expose the conditions at the state industrial school.

The authorities find Jimmy at Gebhardt's office, but before they can apprehend him Kelly admits his involvement in the bootlegging operation and the boy is set free. He discovers Shorty has died, victimized by a corrupt system.

A gang of criminals with supernatural powers, led by Mahesak, break a rebel Karen warlord Kaoyot out of prison, and plan to steal the national treasury of Thailand in order to fund Kaoyot's continuing fight. A secret police unit, led by Yosthana engages the criminals in various battles. Among the criminals they must face are the Five Bullets Bandit and the female warrior, G.I. Jenjila.

Though the police unit puts up a good fight, among them female officer Deungdao, in order to ultimately defeat the criminals, they need to use magic. So Yosthana obtains an old, magical sword, which is activated by the menstrual blood of a virgin.

Helen Bauer (Bette Davis) is a glamorous, successful, headstrong, and very liberated New York graphic artist with modern ideas about romance. She is involved with Don Peterson (Gene Raymond) but is not prepared to sacrifice her independence by entering into matrimony. The two agree to wed only to pacify Helen's conventional immigrant father Adolphe (Alphonse Ethier), whose Old World views spur him to condemn their affair. They form a business partnership, but financial problems at their advertising agency put a strain on the marriage and Don begins seeing Peggy Smith (Kay Strozzi), one of his married clients. Convinced it was marriage that disrupted their relationship, Helen suggests they live apart but remain lovers. When Don discovers Helen is dating his business rival, playboy Nick Malvyn (Monroe Owsley), he returns to Peggy, but in reality his heart belongs to his wife. Agreeing their love will help their marriage survive its problems, the two reconcile and settle into domestic bliss.

The plot is unusual for its time in that Helen is not denigrated for her beliefs about marriage and Don is not depicted as being a cad. In addition, although they are sleeping together and unmarried, neither is concerned about the possibility of children, and certain dialog could suggest that they are using birth control.

One night the narrator sees a green star in the night sky, and casts his soul towards it. He finds a cloud-covered planet which revolves around it and sees that its surface is covered with trees that (from his perspective) seem several miles high. Later, he follows a retinue of humans riding on horse-sized (based on humans retaining earthly size, as he explains at one later point in the novel and another later in the series) dragonflies (which he finds out later are known as '' '') to a splendid city which sparkles like a jewel collection. One of the men in the retinue, cruel-faced and clad in bright yellow, presents a proposal (which the author cannot yet hear) to the ruler of the city, a princess who looks about 14.

At that point, the author is drawn to a large man's body preserved inside a casket—which he revives to the consternation of the yellow retinue, and the cheers of the jewel-city's nobles.

As he has taken the body of a man preserved for over a hundred years (whose soul was banished by a sorcerer), the author has to "relearn" Laonese, the universal language of the planet; he learns that the Jewel-city is known as Phaolon, considered the most splendid city on the planet; that its beautiful ruler is princess Niamh the Fair; that the yellow-clad man was Akhmim ruler of the rival city of Ardha (also known as "yellow city"). He is also "brought up to speed" (the body he took was that of a warrior named Chong The Mighty) on swords, bows, and other weapons.

One day, when Chong and Niamh are out on a hunt for celebrating the Festival of mating '' '', they are confronted by a huge (somewhat larger than a Bengal tiger) lizard known as '' ''; the lizard is killed by an arrow from Chong's friend Panthon, but the spilled blood causes Niamh and Chong to fall into the web of an elephant-sized spider or '' ''. As they escape from it, Niamh is drawn to a flower, which turns out to be a vampire species—but before it can kill her and Chong, the two are rescued by a band of outlaws.

The outlaw band is led by a female, Siona, who falls in (unrequited, as he loves Niamh) love with Chong. Chong makes friends with one of the rescuers, Yurgon—but an enemy of another of the band, weasel-faced Sligon (who manages to find out about the secret of Niamh and Chong).

Later, Sligon reveals the secret to Siona (whose father was banished by Niamh's) and strikes Chong with a poisoned dagger—only to be immediately slain by Siona. Chong aids Niamh in getting to the '' '' pens (to escape) prior to succumbing to the wound and poison—at which point the narrator (on earth) regains consciousness.

''Under the Green Star'' was followed a year later by ''When the Green Star Calls''.

This time, when he reaches the Green Star planet, he sees a boy about 16 spreadeagled to a branch with rawhide, so as to be killed by marauding animals (or to die of starvation, so his body may be scavenged). A huge scorpion or ''phuol'' attacks the boy and then withdraws (waiting for its venom to paralyse, so it can then consume his still-living flesh later).

At that point, a man comes out from concealment behind branches, kills the ''phuol'' with a lightning-emitting wand, and rescues the boy in a sky-sled, which the narrator follows to a city which appears dead (later finding out this is so). The rescuer applies salves and injections to the boy, who dies during the night (known to the narrator, but not the rescuer) whereupon the narrator takes possession of the just-dead body; it takes him a little while to reconcile the memories of this new body, whose name he finds to be Karn the Hunter (of Red Dragon Tribe—the "Red Dragon" being a reference to the ''ythid''), with his soul memories from his earlier incarnation as Chong The Mighty.

Karn soon finds out that the dead city (known as Sotaspra) is a taboo area of the planet, only visited (or inhabited) by some scientists/savants such as his rescuer Sarchimus (self-titled "The Wise"). Indeed, Sarchimus considers all of the other savants of the city as rivals, chief of them Hume "Of The Many Eyes". Sarchimus warns Karn not to go exploring on his own—when Karn disobeys, he discovers the city is full of many mutant creatures, including a "death-fungus" which he narrowly misses, "crawler-vines" which try to strangle him and an amorphous creature Sarchimus calls "''saloog''", all of which were formed due to radiation from the crystals of which Sotaspra was constructed (when the crystals had energy, and the city was alive). Karn is astute enough to understand that Sarchimus did not rescue him for altruistic reasons.

Sometime later, when Sarchimus has gone on an errand, Karn goes to another area where Sarchimus has forbidden him access—a set of doors sealed with Sarchimus' symbol, a scarlet hand. Doing so, he discovers that Sarchimus' experiments are partly guided by an original inhabitant of the city.

Karn had earlier seen some statues of winged humanoids in very commonplace positions—but these were made of chalk, a rather brittle material; the inhabitant is the last living member of these "genii" as Karn thinks of them, over a million years old. The immortal, Zarqa the ''kalood'' (meaning "flying ones") tells him that the statues are the result of a failed experiment of immortality which produced a compound known as "Elixir of Light". Even correctly formulated, the Elixir lengthened the lives of male ''kaloodha'' but sterilised them as a price—while having no effect on the females, thus causing a slow extinction of this noble race; the statues are the result of consuming this elixir mixed lacking a crucial ingredient. Sarchimus has much-tortured Zarqa to find out the formulation—at the time Karn finds him, he has revealed all except one ingredient but not the correct formula. Karn is also told that there is another human captive, a Phaolonian, in the tower (who he finds at a later opportunity—recognising by face, but not by name—to be named Janchan).

Eventually, Sarchimus treats Karn to a drugged feast (and then chains him) as a prelude to testing the Elixir on him—boasting that Zarqa (he doesn't reveal the name, as he does not know of Karn's knowledge) has revealed the correct formula to him. Karn is invigorated and strengthened greatly by the Elixir, but cannot break the chains fastened to him. Pleased at this sight, Sarchimus consumes the rest—and finds himself petrifying to chalk. Zarqa (who had been held in an energy-barrier set to Sarchimus' frequency) then releases Karn (and reveals to him the missing ingredient to be a component distilled from ''phuol'' venom—Karn was protected by residues of the venom from the stinging he had earlier received), who then releases Janchan. The three then find a map to Ardha and Phaolon—which they find are about 3,000 ''farasang'' (a unit of time misused by Laonese also for distance) away.

Janchan enters Ardha and obtains employment as a soldier. In this employ, he finds Niamh (who was recaptured by Siona's band after her escape attempt and then given to Arjala the "goddess" of Ardha as captive—due to rivalry between Arjala and Akhmim, this allowed some power-josting). Soldiers in Arjala's employ have also captured Zarqa and display him as an ''amphasand'', a mythical creature sacred to the Laonese. Janchan makes careful plans to rescue Niamh and Zarqa.

Karn meanwhile has been attacked by a large bumblebee or ''zzumalak'', which he mortally wounds—only to land in a swimming pool where the bee drops him. Taking some coins from this house, he runs into a trio of men who fight and capture him—who turn out to be of the assassin guild. One of this trio, Klygon, soon trains Karn in the arts of the guild. The chief of the guild, an obese man named Gurjan Tor (who most-closely resembles Jabba the Hutt of ''Star Wars''), asks Karn to kill Niamh and Zarqa with a poisoned stiletto—and posts Klygon as his "partner" to ensure that Karn will not fluff the job or run away.

Karn and Klygon fly to the temple tower (where Niamh is held) on ''zaiphs'', and find Janchan and Zarqa in the process of rescuing Niamh. Janchan's rescue goes somewhat awry as Arjala is present with two (very large, muscular eunuch) temple guards. Janchan's plans have been made in order to AVOID having a fight with these toughs (as he particularly fears they may raise an alarm); in desperation, he throws a lamp at one, breaking both it and the eunuch's skull (and discovers that the doomed eunuchs are also mute). The dead eunuch's body strikes Arjala knocking her unconscious—and forcing Janchan to rescue her as well. He quickly grabs Arjala and Niamh and puts them in the sky-sled with Zarqa.

Karn who has seen this is now afraid that Klygon may kill him—as promised to Gurjan Tor.

The cliffhanger above is the starting point for the series' third novel, ''By the Light of the Green Star''.

Category:1973 American novels Category:1973 fantasy novels Category:1973 science fiction novels Category:Novels by Lin Carter Category:American fantasy novels Category:DAW Books books

While looking for work, the Stooges botch an attempt to steal a watermelon from a deliveryman (Cy Schindell), which lands them in trouble with a cop (William Irving). The trio winds up at the offices of the Canvas Back Duck Club, a hunting organization run by conmen Blackie (Lynton Brent) and Doyle (Wheaton Chambers), where they are promptly hired to sell club memberships. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, the whole thing is a scam. Dressed in duck-hunting gear, Moe, Larry and Curly invade the police station and barge right into the office of the police chief (Bud Jamison) and somehow manage to sell memberships to several men, including the police chief and even the mayor.

By the time the group arrives at the lodge, the "club owners" are long gone, and an old man assures them that there are no ducks to be found. In a panic, Moe and Larry try to solve this dilemma by hurling decoy ducks and rubber decoys over the pond. Curly arrives at last with a large flock of ducks (''à la'' the Pied Piper of Hamelin) and leads them into the water. Eventually, the old man (who the Stooges met earlier) shows up (with the local sheriff) telling the cops, the governor and the mayor that Curly has stolen all of his prize domestic ducks and it will cost them $5.00 apiece to replace each duck. The hunters realize they have been swindled and they, the old man and the sheriff with him are angry and shoot their guns at the Stooges, who flee the scene.

The Stooges are three paperhangers who also look after invalid Mary (Mary Ainslee), who always uses a wheelchair. The seemingly helpless blonde, however, is trying to swindle her insurance company out of $25,000, as she is not handicapped in the least. While the Stooges are at work hanging posters, they are taken by one poster that advertises a great hypnotist, Svengarlic ("He'll steal your breath away!" the poster announces). The Stooges want the hypnotist to work his magic on Mary so that she can walk again, but Svengarlic is more interested in winning an audience by hypnotizing the Stooges. Under his spell, they walk out onto a flagpole high on a building and dance. But a distracted bicyclist knocks Svengarlic over and the Stooges are abruptly awakened. They immediately panic when they see where they are, then the flagpole breaks, sending them flying through an open window. The boys land directly in the insurance office where Mary is about to be handed her check. Startled, she stands up to look at the boys, only to have her scheme exposed and her check snatched and torn up. Angry, she grabs the ball from the broken flagpole and throws it at the boys in the heads.

The Stooges are three paperhangers who also look after invalid Mary, who uses a wheelchair. While working, they are taken by one poster that advertises a great hypnotist, Svengarlic ("He'll steal your breath away!" the poster announces). The Stooges want the hypnotist to work his magic on Mary so that she can walk again, but Svengarlic is more interested in winning an audience to create a diversion by hypnotizing the Stooges.

While the audience watches the Stooges dance on an overhead flagpole, Svengarlic's henchmen are in the process of robbing a jewelry store. But a distracted bicyclist knocks Svengarlic over and the Stooges are abruptly awakened. They immediately panic when they see where they are, then the flagpole breaks, sending them flying through the open window of the store being robbed, thwarting the theft.

Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) lures two strangers, solicitor Jerome K. Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet) and charming and erudite drunkard Johnny West (Peter Lorre) to her London flat on Chinese New Year in 1938 because of her belief that if three strangers make the same wish to an idol of Kwan Yin, Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny, the wish will be granted. Since money will make their dreams come true, the three go in on a sweepstakes ticket for the Grand National horse race together and agree that they will not sell the ticket if it is chosen, but will hold on to it until the race is run. Shackleford would use the money to try to win her estranged husband back, Arbutny to smooth the way for his selection to the prestigious Barrister's Club, and Johnny to buy a bar and live in it.

The stories of the three strangers are revealed. Shackleford's husband David (Alan Napier) moved to Canada and fell in love with Janet Elliott (Marjorie Riordan). He returns, just after Johnny and Arbutny take their leave of Crystal, and demands a divorce, but she refuses. She sees to it that he loses a promotion. She also lies to Janet, telling her that David still loves her and that she is pregnant. The trusting woman believes her and returns to Canada.

With the help of an adoring Icey Crane (Joan Lorring), Johnny has been hiding out after his drunken participation in a botched robbery that resulted in the death of a policeman. Icey commits perjury in order to provide an alibi for the murderer and ringleader, Bertram Fallon (Robert Shayne). When a second witness is discredited, Fallon confesses to the robbery but blames the murder on West and the third man involved, Timothy Delaney, who is nicknamed Gabby (Peter Whitney). Johnny is caught and sentenced to death, but Gabby finds Fallon on his way to prison and stabs him. As he dies in the railway carriage, Fallon clears Johnny.

Arbutny has been speculating in stocks with money from the trust fund of Lady Rhea Belladon (Rosalind Ivan), an eccentric widow who believes she can talk with her dead husband. When the stock falls and his margin is called, a desperate Arbutny proposes to Lady Belladon. After consulting with her dead husband, she turns him down. Worse, she says that Lord Belladon wants to have the books checked. Arbutny contemplates suicide, is about to shoot himself but glances in the newspaper and discovers their sweepstakes ticket "Kwan Yin" was drawn in the Grand National.

The three strangers converge on Crystal's flat. Arbutny wants to sell his share of the ticket immediately so he can replace the funds he stole before his crime can be uncovered. Johnny is willing, but Shackleford is adamant that they stick to their original agreement. Arbutny becomes enraged and accidentally kills her with her statue of Kwan Yin. Ironically, they hear on the radio that their horse wins. Johnny points out to Arbutny that the winning ticket has to be destroyed because their agreement and signatures on it would provide a motive for Crystal's murder. They leave the flat, but Arbutny is overcome by guilt, and panics and runs out into the middle of the busy street. Arbutny stops traffic and attracts a crowd, including a policeman, where he confesses to the murder. David Shackleford arrives, intending to shoot his estranged wife for driving Janet away from him, but leaves, shaken, upon discovering that she's already dead.

Johnny returns to the pub, where Icey finds him. Content with having her, he sets the ticket on fire.

The Stooges are detective school graduates shipped off to Scotland. Dressed in kilts and talking in phony Scottish accents, the Stooges (as McMoe, McLarry, and McShemp) are given the task of guarding the prized possessions of the castle's owner (Herbert Evans). The castle staff is actually ransacking the place while the boys sleep there, though they eventually get the baddies.

Ladies' man and soon-to-be college graduate Miles is a player who keeps journals to record his "conquests." His friend Cleaver thinks Miles should accept a bet: can Miles sleep with enough girls before he graduates, to complete the alphabet (using the first letter in the girls' surnames)? Having already conquered a number of girls with different first letters in their surnames, Miles stands a good chance of being able to succeed. It all boils down to whether he can find and sleep with a girl whose surname starts with an X. Miles' roommate Ben, however will prove to be a problem for Miles, since he has a crush on Gabrielle, Miles' target. At the end of the bet, Cleaver tries to push Miles even harder, since the pot has grown to 30,000 dollars. Miles, however, has fallen for Gabrielle, who is different from every girl he's ever met. They start dating, and Ben becomes more jealous. Ben decides to ruin Miles' chances of sleeping with Gabrielle by telling Gabrielle about the bet, even though Miles has clearly explained that Gabrielle means more to him than the money.

Wealthy Ajax Bullion (Emory Parnell) is up in arms when his eccentric wife (Lelah Tyler) who's over come with joy informs him that she wants to adopt a refugee, the latest socio-political movement. To top it off, he has a terrible toothache. His wife insists he goes to the dentist so she can prepare the nursery.

The Stooges are window washers who work on a scaffold outside of a tall building. Moe and Larry use a rope to pull a Curly back up to the scaffold. Moe then orders Curly to continue the job. He obliges but throws a bucket of water at an open window, and the water splashes all over the dentist's office. At nearly the same time, the dentist (Richard Fiske) arrives to see the mess. He then leaves after threatening to have them fired. It is then that Moe orders Larry and Curly to dry up the floor.

Mr. Bullion meets the inept window washers (whom he mistakes for interim dentists) when he enters the office demanding medical attention. They knock him out cold when he asks for anesthetic, then attempt to find the bad tooth. After pulling his bridge-work out completely ("you stripped his gears!", Larry comments), they try to put it back into his mouth with cement. However, the cement hardens before they have a chance to put the tooth back in, so they decide to blast. The dentist arrives back in his office as the dynamite is lit. He calls out to the Stooges, who notice him and run off. The dynamite goes off and Mr. Bullion wakes up, noticing that the pain in his tooth is gone. He heads back to his car and notices the Stooges hiding inside. He inquires as to what they are up to, and Moe says that they are "refugees." Mr. Bullion then has a very nasty idea to disabuse his wife of her philanthropic notion: pass these three nitwits off as refugee children.

Mrs. Bullion is naturally thrilled at the sight of the Stooges, who are dressed as toddlers. Moe and Curly are in large sailor suits, while Larry is dressed as a young girl in a dress with a large hair bow. Mr. Bullion calls them Johnny (Moe), Frankie (Curly), and Mabel (Larry). The Stooges then stay with the Bullions until Mrs. Bullion decides to have a party to introduce her wealthy friends to her new refugees.

Mrs. Bullion ends up regretting their adoption during the party in their honor — and Mr. Bullion is beginning to regret concocting this scheme to begin with. The festivities are interrupted when an angered Mr. Bullion chases after the Stooges with an axe out of the house.

The Stooges are paper hangers who run into their old friend Jerry, an insurance salesman (Lynton Brent). He promises them that if they take out a policy on Curly proving that he has gone insane, they can collect $500 a month. Moe and Larry bring Curly on a leash to the office of Dr. D. Lerious (Vernon Dent). Curly's pretending to be a hound is so over the top that the doctor declares that he must operate. The Stooges flee, and hide out in the back of a dog catcher's truck, where they are soon infested with fleas. Dr. D. Lerious eventually catches up with the Stooges, and Curly is sent straight for the operating room. Eventually, the trio get away on a gurney, encounter Jerry again, and then give him the works.

The Stooges are caught sleeping in a closed awning situated over a store. A brief argument among the trio results in Curly casually tossing a pot over his shoulder, breaking several dishes. The shopkeeper (Max Davidson), mad at the Stooges for vandalizing his store, calls the police and chases the Stooges, who quickly dash into a building’s revolving door. Upon exiting the building, the Stooges have clipboards in tow, having inadvertently landed jobs as census takers.

The boys work their way into the home of a socialite (Symona Boniface) who is concerned with a lack of participants in her weekly Bridge game. The Stooges happily comply, and join the game. In the interim, Curly begins to flirt with the socialite's maid, who is in the process of preparing a large bowl of punch. Curly finds that the drink is “not sweet enough” so, and ends up adding Alum salt to the mix, mistaking it for powdered sugar. Within minutes, everyone is mumbling their words as their lips become puckered.

Afterwards, the Stooges are still searching for people to interview for the census. They eventually come upon a nearby football game, and become thrilled as the prospect of speaking with everyone in the stadium. The trio don football players’ uniforms and bypass the guard in the guises of differing players and storm the field. They try asking questions to the players, who end up ignoring them, and Curly finds an ice cream vendor and takes off after him, somehow hijacking his wagon. The Stooges get pulled into the game and, after a few bouts of hardship, get an idea…if they would get the ball away from the players they would have no choice but to answer their questions. With that, Larry and Moe attach chains to the pants of two players and pull them off, distracting the players enough for Curly to grab the ball and run away. But the players notice him and give chase. Curly continues running like mad as Larry pulls the ice cream wagon, carrying Moe behind him. Moe throws fistfuls of ice cream at the players and the referee who are chasing them, and the Stooges run out of the stadium followed by the angry football team.

Based on a true story, the film follows the rise of Sammy Gravano in ranks in the Gambino crime family, one of the "Five Families" of the New York Cosa Nostra that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, his turning to government witness in the legal trials of John Gotti and his life in federal Witness Protection Program.

The Stooges are singing waiters in a saloon out West, accompanied by three cowgirls. Unfortunately, saloon keeper Maxey (Dick Curtis) is surly and patronizing to the hard working girls. The girls have little choice, as they are forced to work for him because their father is in debt. The Stooges vow to make enough money to pay off the debt and wed the girls, and decide to go prospecting for gold.

Unknown to the Stooges, however, Maxey has recently robbed a bank and buried the loot. Before they find the stolen treasure with the stocks and gold bonds, the Stooges have a mishap, when a rock hits Curly, and thinking that it was Moe's doing, throws a rock at Moe, causing Moe to throw a stick of dynamite, which lands near Yorick, the burro. When their dog takes the stick of dynamite and puts it into the box of canned food supplies, Moe thinks that Yorick ate the dynamite and tries to have the burro drink from a bucket of water, before the explosion. In their digging, the boys managed to discover Maxey's stash, thinking they are truly in the dough. They return to town, but Maxey gets his hands on the money and flees the saloon. The Stooges, of course, catch up with Maxey, retrieve the loot, and end up in a Sherriff's office, where he recognizes the stolen money from the First National Bank, giving back to the bank from whence it came, much to their astonishment.

The Stooges are traveling salesmen in the fictional South American country of Valeska, described as a "thriving kingdom in the tropics." The lazy town is only slightly stirred awake by its frequent earthquakes, though there is a quiet revolution on the horizon. The revolutionary leader (Gino Corrado) also happens to run the hotel where the Stooges are staying, and he decides to close the place down. When the trio cannot pay their bill, they are put in jail and are sentenced to be shot as revolutionaries. During their stay, the Stooge befriend Señorita Rita (Carmen Laroux), another member of the revolutionaries, and she helps the Stooges escape. They make their way to the rebels where they are sentenced to be shot for bringing the wrong plans. Saved by an earthquake, the trio escape in a dynamite truck which blows up due to Curly's stupidity. They survive and try to ride out of the country only to fall off the horse they are riding.

In his stable, Traveller, the favorite horse of retired Civil War general Robert E. Lee, relates the story of his life and experiences to his feline friend Tom. His narrative, meant to begin in the early spring of 1866, follows the events of the war as seen through a horse's eyes, from the time he was bought by General Lee in 1862 until Lee's death in 1870.

At the end of the novel, Traveller, with undying faith in Lee, remains convinced that the Confederate Army beat the Union and that Lee is now "commander of the country" (versus his actual postbellum role as president of Washington University). Despite being led in Lee's funeral procession, Traveller does not understand that his master has died and will not return to ride again.

''Based on the 2001 version; the 1999 version has never been released on home video on any market.''

In Southeast Asia, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Hughes lead an archaeological party exploring caverns. Hughes is separated and finds an alien corpse with a fossilized diamond while Campbell uncovers hieroglyphics leading to the location of a dinosaur skeleton. Two years later, an alien mothership arrives near Earth's orbit and destroy two American satellites that get the attention of soldier Parker, who reports it to General Murdock of the United National Defense Agency (UNDA). Bud Black, a photojournalist, learns about a dinosaur dig, led by Campbell and his assistant Holly.

Hughes, who has been believed to be dead, arrives at the dig site to warn Campbell about the dinosaur's resurrection, but is quickly removed from the site. The alien ship sends beams to reanimate the dinosaur, killing several diggers. Holly confronts Campbell about the mysterious deaths and quits after Campbell refuses to launch an investigation. Hughes finds Holly and reveals to her about the legend of Yonggary, the alien fossil, additional hieroglyphics, and that he was held by the U.S. government as a "guest" for the last two years. She initially dismisses his claims, but comes around after he shows her classified data concerning the alien fossil.

They return to the dig site to stop Campbell, but arrive too late when the alien ship fully resurrects Yonggary, killing Campbell in the process. The alien ship dematerializes Yonggary and Holly and Hughes are taken into custody by Parker. Yonggary is then teleported before them and escape before a helicopter squadron engage Yonggary in battle, only to be defeated. The National Space Investigation Agency (NSIA) send Stanley Mills to share information regarding the aliens with General Murdock and General Howell. Mills explains that a paleontologist provided the NSIA with scientific evidence that an alien civilization visited the Earth 200 million years ago and that vital information in defeating the aliens was stolen. Mills recommends to capture the aliens alive, but Howell wishes to destroy them. Yonggary is then teleported to Los Angeles and proceeds to attack.

Upon arriving at the UNDA base, Hughes and Holly are confronted by Mills, who reveals that Hughes was the paleontologist who shared his discoveries and later stole information from their lab. Hughes counters that he warned the NSIA but chose to ignore him. Mills attempts to take the stolen data disc back but fails and is detained. The US President gives the UNDA five hours to defeat Yonggary or will launch a nuclear strike. Murdock orders General Thomas to dispatch his experimental Project T Forces, led by Parker, to attack Yonggary.

Hughes and Holly decode the additional hieroglyphics and uncover that the aliens are controlling Yonggary through a diamond-shaped receptor on his forehead and that "another great light will be sent to do battle." Failing to defeat Yonggary in time, the President sends a bomber to kill Yonggary, to the delight of Mills. The T-Forces manage to break the aliens’ control over Yonggary. Mills tries to convince Murdock to kill him but is ignored, which forces Mills to jam the UNDA's radars unless they let him leave. Mills fails and is arrested. The aliens send a new monster, Cykor, to battle Yonggary. Cykor initially gets the upper hand, but Yonggary emerges victorious in the end, forcing the aliens to flee. The generals manage to stop the bomber at the last minute and the following morning, the UNDA transports Yonggary to a deserted island.

The A-List crew has finally graduated and everyone is looking forward to enjoying a carefree summer but Cammie and Anna get caught trespassing and are arrested. Fortunately, the girls only have to help run a charity fashion show for New Visions, an organization to help less-fortunate girls, for their community service. There, they meet a beautiful, petite girl named Champagne, an aspiring model. Virginia Vanderleer, the head of New Visions, warns Cammie and Anna that Champagne was accused of stealing a dress not too long ago and is not to be trusted. However, Cammie takes Champagne under her wing and promises to make her a star while Anna uses her East Coast connections to pull a deal with Lizbette Demetrius, an upscale cosmetics company CEO, who promises to attend the show in person to check out Champagne.

Adam Flood has decided to spend the summer in Michigan and even tells Cammie that he might want to attend college there, much to her dismay. Cammie begins to flirt with Ben and the two almost kiss. Ben tells Cammie she has changed and if they ever get back together, it would be so much more than before. Dee is still with Jack Walker but she becomes concerned when their relationship is becoming too serious especially since she finds herself attracted to Aaron Steele, an acquaintance from Ojai.

Sam is convinced that Poppy is cheating on Jackson with Bodhi Gilad, her new yoga instructor, and enlists Parker to help her catch Poppy in the act. She offers him a deal: she will secure for Parker a part in her father's remake of Ben Hur and he will seduce Poppy in exchange. She assures him he will be kept anonymous but Parker worries that somehow Jackson will find out and will blacklist him forever in Hollywood. Sam hires a photographer to capture Poppy and Parker kissing but feels guilty afterwards and decides to destroy the pictures. However, a tabloid magazine catches Poppy and Bodhi together and when Jackson confronts her, Poppy breaks down in tears and flees, leaving Ruby Hummingbird behind. Sam is pleased Poppy is finally out of her life and comforts her betrayed father and abandoned half-sister.

Clark admits to Cammie that her mother was clinically depressed and committed suicide although she loved Cammie dearly. He leaves Cammie with a letter Jeanne wrote to be read on Cammie's wedding day but Cammie opens it and is touched by the beautiful, emotional letter. With Dee, the girls talk about their relationship woes and Cammie wishes her mother was still around. The two venture up into the attic, where they find Jeanne's old clothes. Cammie finds a familiar outfit and tries it on, finally grieving over the loss of her mother. Dee pleasantly surprises Cammie by offering wisdom and comfort.

The New Visions fashion show is a success, especially since the models used were not professionals but under-privileged girls like Champagne. However, when a dress goes missing, everyone is quick to accuse Champagne. Cammie deduces that Martin Rittenhouse, the designer, deliberately hid the dress to drum up publicity. Since Lizbette decided Champagne was not right for her company after all, Cammie coerces Martin to launch a petite fashion line and use Champagne as his star model lest she ruin his reputation. Martin quickly agrees and Champagne is thrilled.

During the after party, Cammie calls Adam and gives him an ultimatum: if he is not back in L.A. soon, they are over. Meanwhile, Anna tell Caine and Ben simultaneously, and tells them that she wants to date both of them at the same time. Caine agrees and Ben is incredulous, but eventually he kisses Anna sweetly and agrees, because he doesn't want to lose her. Cammie and Anna congratulate each other for a job well done when Cammie announces to Anna that if it doesn't work out between her and Adam, Cammie will go after Ben.

As Karn ponders on how to get past Klygon (who Gurjan Tor had ordered to kill him in case of failure), Klygon then tells him that they should escape together—as Gurjan Tor will also kill Klygon a "master assassin" even more tortuously, and as Klygon has no wish to kill his only remaining true friend. The two escape on their black-painted ''zaiphs'' tethering them a short distance outside Ardha (as night travel is extremely dangerous). In the morning, they see a flight of Akhmim's warriors pursuing the sky-sled (which Karn knows they cannot catch, due to its speed exceeding that of any ''zaiph''). When the two set out for Phaolon at a higher altitude, a huge shadow comes over them. Klygon looks toward the shadow's source which turns out to be a dinosaur-sized hawklike bird or ''zawkaw''. They attempt to flee from the ''zawkaw'' only to find that its speed exceeds that of their ''zaiphs''; before fleeing Karn observes a beautiful (not in effeminate sense) bald, ebon-skinned human riding it. At that point, Karn finds the ''zoukar'' (an invention of the ''kaloodha'', the lightning-emitting wand which Sarchimus had used to kill the ''phuol'') and slays the ''zawkaw'', panicking its rider who falls from its back into the abyss. However, he and Klygon are not able to regain control of their ''zaiphs'' till these hit the forest floor (which kills the ''zaiphs'').

In the meantime Janchan, Niamh and Zarqa (along with a captive Arjala) prepare to restart after a night spent parked; at this point Arjala's haughtiness comes to the forefront as she criticises the rude breakfast they have—and her feeling of humiliation is aggravated when Niamh reminds her that she (Niamh) too is a Goddess (as Princess/Goddess are integrated in Phaolon). When they restart the sky-sled at high altitude, they see a large floating city from which ''zawkaw'' with ebon-skinned riders (similar to the one that chased Karn and Klygon) flying around it. A flight of the ''zawkaw'' lands near the quartet, who are taken captive by the riders and taken into the city. There, an old man tells them the city is named Calidar, at which Arjala is initially overjoyed (she had earlier welcomed the ebon-skinned men as her "cousins", though they gave her no recognition)--but her joy is turned to horror as the old man, Nimbalim of Yoth, informs her that she is viewed as merely another captive. Niamh is thrilled at meeting Nimbalim (whom she had always been told had died a thousand years prior—even his city had been destroyed sometime later by the Blue Barbarians during one of their madness-times).

Karn and Klygon have meantime taken shelter, but are disappointed at the forest floor as it provides only some tasteless (though plentiful) food items. They are captured by a tribe of albinos who ride on huge earthworms (known as ''sluth'') and taken into caves in the trees' root-networks. There, they meet a blue-skinned man who identifies himself as "Delgan of the Isles" (the "of the Isles" particularly intrigues Karn who has lived entirely in the treetops), to whom Klygon takes an immediate dislike. Karn notices that Delgan is rather refined for a "Blue Barbarian" (the only race of which he knows having such skin colour). The troglodytes, led by Gor-ya, add Klygon and Karn to their herd of slave tenders of grubs known as ''ygnoum''. Gor-ya also warns them that they must keep the ''ygnoum'' safe from enemies he terms ''kraan''. When the ''kraan'' (hippo-sized red ants) later attack the troglodytes and slaughter many of the ''ygnoum'', Gor-ya tries to punish Klygon by whipping him to death, but is stopped when Karn thrusts a torch in his face giving him serious burns—for which Karn is sentenced to be killed by the largest of the ''sluth'' (suggested to Gor-ya by Delgan).

One of the younger of the black men of Calidar, Ralidux, finds Arjala fascinating; he discusses this with an elder, Clyon, who attempts to dissuade him. The travellers (including Nimbalim) plan on escaping Calidar but are initially stymied by the sky-sled's being too small—for which Niamh finds a solution, capturing (and riding) one of the ''zawkaw''. Eventually, Zarqa is able to tap Ralidux' mind and use him to control a ''zawkaw''—on which Niamh and Arjala ride with him. The travellers' escape is detected however, and a flight of the ''zawkaw''-riders armed with a pain-rod (less-powerful version of the ''zoukar'') knocks Zarqa (piloting the sky-sled) unconscious. Janchan then takes control and brings the sky-sled to a stop.

Delgan visits the condemned Karn and gives him his weathercloak, witchlight, rapier and ''zoukar''—and tells him to hurry so they can escape. As they do so, the troglodytes awaken the huge ''sluth'' which pursues the trio. Karn then pushes a button on the witchlight (warning Delgan and Klygon to cover their eyes), and turns away. The witchlight has one lightning-bright flash which kills the huge ''sluth''—but the reflection on the water's surface blinds Karn. The trio escape in a boat made from a fallen leaf to the inland sea, and land on a small isle—where Delgan strikes Klygon unconscious and robs the two of weathercloak, rapiers and zoukar. Mockingly he states, "in my land, I am a king; I go to reclaim my throne". Klygon regains consciousness, and he and Karn hear the wings of the ''zawkaw'' (piloted by Ralidux, now free of Zarqa's mind-control) overhead.

Followed by ''As the Green Star Rises''.

A tightly-knit foursome of lifelong friends and unrepentant gamblers wage more than money in a winner-takes-all tale of epic proportions. David Zigman always manages to come through and beat the house at the last minute, but when he and his three pals risk it all in the name of one priceless thrill, they may have finally gone too far. Now, as each man pulls his hand close to his chest for one final go at the gold, these friends will finally find out will finally find out where their love, loyalty, and honor truly lies.

The story draws on events that occurred as part of the political violence that led to the overthrow of Cuban dictator Gerardo Machado y Morales in 1933. In 1932, a violent opposition group, the ABC (''abecedarios''), assassinated the President of the Cuban Senate Clemente Vazquez Bello. They had constructed a tunnel to reach the Vazquez family crypt in Havana's Colón Cemetery and planted an explosive device there, anticipating that Machado would attend the funeral. The plan failed when the family decided to bury Vazquez elsewhere.

The film is about a group of revolutionaries who plot to bring down their corrupt government. The title, chosen by the distributor Columbia Pictures in place of ''Rough Sketch'', identifies how they come together with no prior associations, sharing only their political principles. China Valdez (Jennifer Jones) is a bank clerk who has a brother who distributes anti-government flyers. She watches as a government operative guns him down on the steps of the University of Havana. She vows to kill his assassin, Ariete. At her brother's funeral, Tony Fenner (John Garfield), an American confederate of her brother, tells her to join his anti-government underground group instead of taking revenge on her own. When he learns that China's house borders a cemetery, he devises a scheme to dig a tunnel from China's house to the cemetery, assassinate a senior government official whose family plot is in that cemetery, and then detonate a bomb during the man's funeral, killing the government officials among the mourners. His disparate group of tunnelers includes a dockworker, a bicycle mechanic, and a graduate student. Much of the movie is devoted to the digging of the tunnel. The tunnelers struggle with the need to kill men who are less than entirely evil and to take the lives of innocent bystanders. Ramon goes mad thinking of these issues, wanders off and dies in a traffic accident. Ariete harasses China, jealous of her relationship with Fenner, who he has learned is actually Cuban by birth.

When the tunnel is ready, a prominent government minister is assassinated as planned. As a munitions expert prepares to set the bomb in place, they learn that the burial will not take place in the family tomb as expected. They make plans for Fenner, who by now is well known to Ariete, to leave Cuba. China will get the necessary funds from Fenner's account at her bank. Fenner rages about his failure, about the disgrace of returning to the people who funded his trip with small donations, fleeing as he had as a boy with his father. Only in supporting him at this point does China declare her love for him. China obtains the funds but sends a fellow employee because she is being tailed by one of Ariete's men. But Fenner, unwilling to leave without her, comes to China's house. The film climaxes with a violent shoot-out sequence, followed by the outbreak of revolution and popular celebration.

In a British prison in the early 1800s, Scottish rogue Davey Haggart (John Hurt) is seen writing his memoirs while waiting to be hanged. Most of his story is told in flashback with voice-over narration by Davey. His story begins as he is seen marching and beating a drum for the British Army, but he quickly deserts by jumping off a bridge with his drum and floating away. We learn that his father had been a highwayman who was hanged at the age of 21 for attempting to rob the Duke of Argyll (Robert Morley) and that Davey is determined to exceed the number of his father's crimes. Annie (Pamela Franklin), a childhood friend who is in love with him, follows him at different times, sometimes getting him out of trouble but hoping that he will reform.

Davey winds up becoming a partner with McNab (Ronald Fraser), a pickpocket and thief, sometimes teaming up with other criminals. Eventually, the two land in prison, where Davey is able to break into the women's quarters and start a raucous party with the female prisoners, led by Jean Carlisle (Fidelma Murphy). Davey is bailed out by Annie, but he then enables McNab's escape and turns to highway robbery, following in his father's footsteps. Constable Richardson (Nigel Davenport), the local officer, tries to recruit Annie to help capture Davey, but she refuses.

Davey goes into hiding in the Scottish highlands, but still gets into trouble. Almost by accident, Davey foils an attempted assault and robbery of Sir James Graham (Donal McCann), a nephew of the Duke of Argyll, who invites Davey to his uncle's manor. While Davey wins the favor of the Duke and his family, McNab, Jean Carlisle, Annie, and Constable Richardson also converge on the estate at different times. Davey sets up an elaborate robbery of guests at a grand ball hosted by the Duchess (Maxine Audley), but Annie then returns the stolen jewels. When Richardson recognizes Davey as the thief he has been seeking, a lengthy chase ensues, with Davey stealing a horse and riding away until he is knocked off by a low-hanging tree branch.

The story returns to Davey's prison cell, as he finishes writing his memoirs, expecting his execution to take place soon. Annie and McNab, however, are able to sabotage the gallows so that Davey escapes once again, riding away with Annie.

The story is based on the 1961 novel by Hans Koningsberger, set at the time of the 1358 uprising of the peasants of northern France known as the Jacquerie. Heron of Fois (Assi Dayan), a student from Paris, crosses territory devastated by the upheaval and the ferocious reprisals of the nobility. He meets with Claudia (Anjelica Huston), the aristocratic daughter of a royal official killed by the peasants, and they attempt to reach Calais. In the novel Heron's intended final destination is Oxford University while in the film "the sea" less specifically comes to represent an abstract freedom. While differing in their views of the ''Jacquerie''—Heron sympathises with the exploited peasantry while Claudia sees their rising as mindless savagery—the young couple become lovers. In the end they fail to escape the chaotic violence around them but await death "strangely happy - we had stopped running from them and we had our hour".

In 1920s America, Mary, a young girl exposed from her infancy to evil influences, is in love with Harry, a sculptor, but for the sake of financial gain becomes engaged to be married to the rich banker Jackson Harber, a much older man, and the former lover of her mother. Harry attempts suicide. By her abandoned behaviour, including her attempted seduction not only of Harber's adolescent son, Eduard, but also of Eduard's tutor, a priest, Mary drives Harber to the verge of suicide as well. The first historical sequence shows Mary as the Queen of Syria who cruelly executes a young goldsmith and jeweller (played by the same actor as Eduard). Back in the present, Mary has arranged an assignation with both Harber and Eduard, neither knowing of the intentions of the other, at night in a summerhouse. While waiting for them she falls asleep: an Expressionist dream shows Harber and Eduard fighting over her, and Eduard killing his father. This is succeeded by the main historical sequence, the wickedness and destruction of Sodom, in which Mary now appears as Lea (Lia), Lot's wife. The dreams shock Mary into a realisation of the true nature and consequences of her behaviour, and she returns in penitence to Harry.

''The Toy Castle'' is a show about a group of toys that magically come to life when their children are asleep. When the children are about to wake up, the toys dash around fast until they are back in their former positions. Each episode consists of three story lines, in which the toys all dance around the castle and get into situations which the viewer may relate to.

The player's character must save his girlfriend, who was kidnapped by a young girl. The backstory differs slightly between the Japanese and American versions, although the in-game presentation is the same regardless. In the American version, the player's character is named Bon-Bon and the girl he must rescue is a Princess named Candy, who is trapped in her own dream. In the Japanese version, the main character is named Carton and the girl he must rescue is merely his own girlfriend, Jenny, who has been kidnapped by Carton's younger sister Quinty (the titular character in the Japanese version), who is jealous of the attention that Jenny gets.

The book is a collection of short stories about the lives of pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial women at various levels of Algerian society. It is a work about the compartmentalization of women in Algeria and the "harems"—social, economic, symbolic—into which they are placed.

College students pledge the Gamma Nu Pi fraternity at a fictional college and endure common hazing practices such as humiliation, forced eating of onions and severe paddlings.

Two "agents of God" explain the nature and purpose of the universe to the audience, using the Mann family of suburban New Jersey for illustration. At the center of the story is Eleanor, a sweet, sad housewife horribly treated by her husband Steve and most every other character in the play, most of whom are actually the "agents of God" in disguise. Eleanor's oldest son Donald is a drug addict, a dealer, and a pimp, middle son Gary an angry homosexual, and youngest son Andy has lost his penis in a reaper accident.

When it seems to Eleanor that there isn't any hope for escape from her miserable existence, a door-to-door brush salesman professes his love for her and promises he'll return to carry her away forever, however, the salesman is actually one of the agents of God once again testing Eleanor's threshold for misery. After numerous trials and tribulations (including a sadistic rape) the revelation that the brush salesman was lying, and a Papal assassination, the family finds itself exiled in Iceland, where it appears Eleanor's nightmare will only continue.

Dr. Park Jung-nam finds a photo album dating back to his days as an intern at the Ansaeng Hospital. This triggers memories of his life. In 1942, as a young medical intern, Jung-nam's arranged marriage ended when his fiancée, whom he had never met, committed suicide. Later he was assigned to monitor the morgue late at night. There he fell in love with a corpse, which is later revealed as the body of his deceased fiancée. Soon other mysterious events take place in the hospital, involving a young girl haunted by ghosts and a serial killer targeting Japanese soldiers.

The film, set in Colombia, opens with a gang in a car, carefully looking after a certain package. The gang is led by a violent and volatile man who is only known as Benjamin. A few moments later, the gang arrives at a farm and storm the house, taking the family hostage. Benjamin then says that there is money in the house, and that the family will give it to them if they want to remain unharmed. However, Simon, the man of the house, says that they are wrong and that they are a really poor family who have never had much money. A furious Benjamin holds Simon at gunpoint, while one of his henchmen begins taking measurements of all the family member's necks, he realizes that the only person who has the "desired" measurements is Simon's wife, Ofelia. The man then takes out the package seen at the beginning of the film and opens it, revealing 2 pieces of PVC pipes and other instruments; he places the pieces around Ofelia's neck and straps them together, forming a "collar bomb". Benjamin then orders the family to lay down on their stomachs, the family complies and, a few minutes later, realize the gang is gone.

The shocked family, still asking themselves why they were attacked if they had no money, begin trying to take the device off Ofelia's neck (being completely unaware of what the device was) but are unable to do so. They find a cassette tape in the package where the device was, and play it on a stereo player. The cassette is a message left by the gang, asking for a ransom of 15 million pesos to remove the collar, and at the same time warning them not to tamper with the device or go to the police. Since the family has no money, they decide to ask help to the police anyway. They use a cellphone to call Ofelia's sister so that she in turn can call the police.

The national guard and the Colombian army react quickly and arranges a meeting with Ofelia so that they can remove the device. However, the meeting point is far away, and so the family asks a neighbor (who is also unaware of what the collar was) to drive them to the meeting point. He initially complies but then tells them to get out of the car after realizing the device is actually a bomb. The family are forced to walk, but luckily they are given a ride by a couple of men who were pushing a wagon along the train rails. Soon after, the device begins making a beeping noise, which terrorizes the family.

They eventually reach the meeting point and meet with Jairo, an officer from the national guard's bomb squad, who begins examining the device. He knows the procedure to remove it, but he lacks the proper tools and is forced to improvise with a kitchen knife, a candle, and a lighter. The process takes a long time, since the knife is not very sharp and the candle takes a long time to heat it. The army eventually arrives and sets around a perimeter, and a lot of passersby start gathering around the perimeter to watch. Ofelia, who was initially relatively calm, is now visibly distraught and has a breakdown after Jairo tells her to "excuse her for a second" to which she replies "I have no spare seconds".

Jairo eventually manages to remove a piece from the device, and finds the explosive component. He attempts to remove it but realizes it's more complicated than that when the device releases toxic fumes from a chemical detonator that was hidden inside. Jairo barely manages to avoid the fumes. Ofelia doesn't and she goes into respiratory arrest, but is helped by the paramedics on site and manages to breathe normally again. Jairo successfully removes the chemical detonator, he reports it to his CO, who congratulates him and reassures Ofelia that she will be fine, Ofelia takes his word and starts calming down. As the CO begins walking to the safe zone, the camera turns black, and an explosion is heard, Ofelia's family rush to the site and realize that despite all efforts, the bomb has detonated, killing Ofelia. Jairo can be seen lying on the floor with severe burns on his arm (although it is unknown if he is dead or just injured). The camera then moves towards Ofelia's youngest daughter, who is watching in horror from a distance. The film ends with the girl crying and asking "Why God, why?". Jairo's fate, as well as the gang's, is left unknown.

The story begins on September 3, 1903, with young man, Richard Arnold, twenty-six old scientist devoted heart and soul to the invention of flying machine, finally realizing his dream in the form of air-ship model that can fly on its own. However, living completely for his dream, he ended with no money to sustain even his next day's life, let alone do something practical with his revolutionary invention. The circumstances made him wander around the streets of London, until a stranger overheard his muttering about flying machine that he wouldn't want to put in hands of tyrants or for the use in war and destruction. The stranger introduced himself as Maurice Colston, and soon both men realized they share the same distaste for autocracy and the status quo as it was, placing themselves "at war with Society".

With the arrangement of Colston, Arnold met with other heads of the "Brotherhood of Freedom", the revolutionary organization of anarchists, nihilists and socialists bent on ending the society of oppression and misery. Agreeing with their cause, he put his knowledge and skills at their disposal, while still keeping his complete control over the invention that will change the face of the Earth. During the meeting he met Natasha, the Angel of the Revolution, and immediately fell in love with her. However, the cause they have been set to achieve was of far greater importance so the romance between them had to wait for better times. Equipped by the Brotherhood with everything he needed, Arnold finished the construction of the first air-ship to ever fly the skies above Earth: the ''Ariel''.

The first use of the air-ship was in the rescuing of Natasha in the March 1904, arrested by Russian government about the time ''Ariel'' was built. On their flight towards the designated town in Russia where they will attempt to rescue Natasha, the "Terrorists" - as everyone called the members of this secret order - decided to show the world the destructive power of the air-ship. The strongest European fortress, Kronstadt, situated on the island in the Finnish Gulf, was picked as an example of what the Terrorists can now achieve. Within several minutes, the fortress was brought to ruin, with weapons fired from the ''Ariel'', of the devastating power that no army has yet seen. Through the use of such a vessel and the innumerable agents the Brotherhood had all around the Western world, in all professions, the Terrorists managed to rescue Natasha before the convoy of political prisoners reached Siberia. The news of the mysterious air vessel and its power travelled all over the Western world, causing fear and panic in the ranks of both common people and the upper classes.

Meanwhile, after forty years of peace, European powers were readying for the inevitable final clash: plans were being laid down, treaties made and tested, armies equipped and mobilized. Attempting to control the coming war and make it the war to end all wars, Terrorists set off to find a suitable place for headquarters from where they could send orders and organize their own troops without being distracted. A region in the midst of Africa, called ''Aerial'' by the English explorers who found it, made a perfect spot. The region was a paradise valley surrounded by high mountains, thus unreachable by any conventional vessel - except the air-ship. In that paradise, Arnold and Natasha finally swore their love to each other, agreeing to prolong their longing passion until the war to end all wars is over and eternal peace restored on Earth. In the meantime, Terrorists built eleven more air-ships identical to ''Ariel'' and the twelfth - a flagship - with twice the firepower and the size.

As Europe sank into war between the Anglo-Teutonic Alliance (led by Britain, Germany and Austria) and the Franco-Slavonian League (led by Russia, France and Italy), the new warfare proved to be more devastating than ever, especially with the Russians and French employing the newly built war-balloons. The balloons, although in many ways inferior to Terrorists' air-ships, were destroying fort after fort, city after city, and securing numerous victories for the Franco-Slavonian League. Even though they could only drop dynamite from above, war-balloons were causing such havoc that the German and Austrian armies could not cope with the situation, losing the land fast. During the early weeks of this war of the Titans, Terrorists tried to stay away from siding with any alliance, occasionally appearing here and there and settling their own issues with involved sides or their weapons of war, pushing their own well-planned agenda slowly but steadily. Still, through a momentary lack of caution, Terrorists lost one air-ship to the Russians, because of treason in their own ranks. Pursuing the lost vessel in an attempt to either retrieve it or destroy, the Terrorists proved the superiority of their flying machines to any other human machine, including the war-balloons of the Russians and French. Finally retrieving the lost air-ship, they witnessed the destructive power that the Franco-Slavonian League had at its disposal against Anglo-Teutonic Alliance, which assured them that Britain and her allies had no chance of winning such a war.

As the European war irresistibly drew closer to Britain shores, with Germany falling completely under the power of Russian Tsar, Terrorists had more important work to finish. The head of the American section of the Brotherhood, Michael Roburoff, asked for Natasha's hand, and to the utter disappointment of both Natasha and Arnold, Natasha's father sent her to America. The lovers did not try to challenge the will of the leading terrorist, so they accepted the change as they usually did - being certain that Natas' plan was again made with careful and rational preparation. However, it turned out that Roburoff was in fact blackmailing Natas: he was proposing to exchange the allegiance of the American section for Natasha's hand. By the will of Natas, Roburoff was shot dead by Natasha when he received her in his house in America, and the American section gained a new leadership, ready for the revolution.

On the night of 4 October 1904, the order was passed to millions of secret followers of the Brotherhood in America, and the next day production completely stopped, streets and institutions were taken by organized masses and the government was overthrown. The New government arrested big capitalists who were scheming to use the European conflict to gain even greater profit by supplying the Franco-Slavonian League, and with a threat of air-ships and a mass of troops devoted to Brotherhood's Cause the Terrorists proclaimed a new Anglo-Saxon Federation. Soon Canada faced the same destiny and the terrorists turned to Britain with a proposal: either face utter destruction by Russian and French forces, or become a part of the Federation. The British government refused the proposal, willing to fight to the bitter end and still hoping that the islands could not be taken by any continental army.

Much to their surprise, with the aid of war-balloons, the Franco-Slavonian League managed not only to cut all oversea trade to and from Britain, but also arranged a successful landing of troops on British soil, aiming to take London as the heart of Anglo-Saxon world. Under siege and with no allies left, Britain fought the last battle furiously, but the siege cut all food supply and left the Old Lion with no other choice but to accept a newly sent proposal from the Terrorists. At the height of his power, the Russian Tsar was already looking forward to Britain's surrender and was taken by surprise as the new army arose in Britain: the army called by the Terrorists, just like they did in America. Even greater was the Tsar's surprise when he realized that terrorists had thousands of their men in his own ranks. Aided with air-ships and troops from American section, the Brotherhood - now acting as the Anglo-Saxon Federation - swiftly destroyed almost all Russian, French and Italian troops, forcing a surrender of all the armies and ending the world war in just two days.

On 9 May, a conference was held to decide the future of the Western world. Having the power of millions of men under their Federation's banner, and air-ships in the sky, the Terrorists easily convinced all European leaders that the only way to stop destruction was to make wars impossible to fight. Thus, disarmament of all standing armies was enacted, with police being the only force to keep the order. However, in the East, Buddhist and Muslim people fought each other without information of what had happened in Europe. After defeating their opponents, the Muslims moved to Turkey in an attempt to conquer the Western world. Met with the tremendous destructive power of the Federation, they soon admitted defeat and accepted the conditions of surrender that were laid before them by the Terrorists. The conditions were the same for all nations, now united under the banner of the Federation, the all-powerful peace force. Removing from the national laws all unjust and confusing parts and confiscating in the hands of the state all the land that was not directly used for production, the Federation finally achieved the order that suited the common man, without any fear of wars in the future. Willing and able to achieve their goal by any means at their disposal, the Terrorists finally succeeded and concluded their war to end all wars.

Liam O'Shaughnessy is the pariah of a small Irish town due to his incessant mooching and fabricating of tall tales. He enters the local pub, tells everyone he saw the little people in Killany Woods, and is thrown out. Angered, he vows to return to the little people and remain with them.

Not long after, Mike Mulvaney sees Liam emerge from the hardware store holding a box. Mike questions the store owner about it, and is told the "little people" gave Liam gold to pay for tools to help them. Mike also discovers Liam has paid up his landlady and moved out.

When Mike confronts Liam, berating him for not paying off his numerous debts when he clearly has money, Liam admits he is a moocher but says he cannot pay anyone back because the money belongs to the little people and was only entrusted to him so he could buy the things they need. Mike does not believe him and uses the threat of force to make Liam hand over a triangular gold piece to cover his debt to Mike, even after Liam warns him that gold stolen from the little people will not remain good. When Mike demands the rest of the gold, Liam hits him over the head with the box and runs into the woods. Mike follows him and discovers the "little people" are actually small-statured aliens who arrived in a mushroom shaped spaceship. Mike runs back to town and tells everyone at the pub what he saw, but no one is inclined to believe his story, especially after the gold piece he flourishes turns out to be ordinary lead. Meanwhile, Liam departs with the aliens to their home planet.

In the 1930s, aspiring radio drama actor Milo Trent is invited to serve as a last-minute replacement on the weekly show ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' by the show's creator, Nelson Westbrook. Westbrook has just completed a full rewrite, forcing the cast to read their lines straight from the script without rehearsal. The regular cast also inform Trent that Westbrook never stops a show during recording, no matter what goes wrong. Hoping to impress Westbrook, who is fastidious about authentic production, the effects man shows him a Voodoo artifact he acquired to use for one of the sound effects. Picking it up and examining it, Westbrook declares it a cheap fake and wishes that he could have all the effects in his show come from something real.

As the actors read lines which precede sound effects, an authentic source for that sound effect materializes in the studio. First a vulture manifests to make a caw, then an African tribesman appears to play the drum beats described in the script. Things become more dangerous when a storm brings heavy winds and rain into the studio and a rifle shot is produced by a real rifle. Improvising, the actors declare (still in character) that the storm has broken, and the storm stops. Westbrook remains delighted that the sound effects in his show are now truly authentic, but his co-producer persuades him to at least write out the most dangerous sound effects, such as an elephant stampede and an earthquake. They hastily hand-write the revisions onto copies of the script and have them passed to the actors.

The cast reaches the end of the script and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. However, the show's announcer reads the teaser for next week's episode, "Invaders from Mars". A flying saucer crashes into the sound stage.

Matt Riddlehoover wrote, directed, edited and stars in this seriocomic feature about a gay playwright who feeds off his stubborn attraction to the wrong type of guy (played in multiple roles by Jonas Brandon). When he attracts the attention of a newspaper columnist (Lindsey Hancock) who will champion his work, success seems guaranteed until he meets her boyfriend - played by Brandon. The film excels in Riddlehoover's delivery as the self-absorbed, flawed hero. His timing is impressive, given that he was also directing himself. Winner of the MySpace Film User's Choice Award.

The play contains three main characters: * '''John Pebble''': A business man of Styx Enterprises. Near the end of the song, he has been knighted and works for United Blacksprings International. * '''Mark Hall''' (also known as "The Winkler"): A man who works for Styx Enterprises and has the task of evicting tenants. * '''Mrs Barrow''': a tenant in a house in Harlow,'''Mr Hall''': ''[to Mrs Barrow]'' Here we are in Harlow New Town, did you recognise your block across the square, over there? purchased by Pebble.

The song starts with a fast-paced refrain of Pebble ordering Hall to "Get 'em out by Friday". In the following verse, the Winkler tells a disbelieving Mrs Barrow that a firm of men has purchased her property and that she has been evicted. She refuses to leave, so Pebble raises the rent on the property. In lieu of this, the Winkler offers £400 for Mrs Barrow to move; she does, albeit grudgingly. Shortly after Mrs Barrow moves in, however, Pebble again raises the rent.

A slow instrumental indicates a passage of time, taking the story to the year 2012. At this time, Genetic Control has announced that they are restricting the height of all humans to four feet. This piece of news is then discussed in a pub by a man named "Joe Everybody," who reveals the reason behind the restriction: so that Genetic Control, who has recently bought some properties, will be able to accommodate twice as many people in the same tower block.

The penultimate verse is that of Pebble, now knighted, repeating the process for another set of properties. The last verse is a "Memo from Satin Peter",:

:With land in your hand, you'll be happy on earth :then invest in the Church for your heaven.

It stars Jeroen Krabbé as a horror film maker named Boris Arkadin, whose pregnant wife, Mary, was supposedly brutally murdered by a Manson-like gang of hippy psychopaths during the 1960s. An eccentric recluse, Boris makes a comeback when he invites some actors to a large mansion in the English countryside to 'audition' for his new film. But unknown to most of them they are being filmed by hidden cameras linked to a snuff website.

The film focuses on Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher who has produced a series of books and documentaries on supernatural activity around Japan. During the process of making a documentary titled ''The Curse'', Kobayashi disappeared after his house burnt down and his wife Keiko was found dead in the ruins. The aforementioned documentary begins to play, shown mostly through the recordings of Kobayashi's cameraman Miyajima.

A year and a half earlier, Kobayashi investigates a woman named Junko Ishii and her son after her neighbor hears the sound of crying babies coming from her house. Ishii soon moves away, and Kobayashi and Miyajima return to her former residence to find dead pigeons on the property. Ishii's neighbor and her daughter die in a mysterious car crash. Around the same time, Kana Yano, a girl who exhibits strong psychic abilities on a variety television program, disappears. Speaking to her parents, Kobayashi learns a man named Mitsuo Hori visited Kana. Hori, an eccentric psychic, claims that Kana was taken by "ectoplasmic worms." Hori's obscure directions lead Kobayashi and Miyajima to observe a man named Osawa, who takes pigeons into his home in a nearby apartment block. Osawa is later reported missing.

After filming at a shrine, actress Marika Matsumoto finds herself fashioning yarn and wires into interconnected loops in her sleep. Kobayashi sets up a camera to record her one night and captures a voice saying the word "Kagutaba." Kobayashi visits local historian, Tanimura, who tells him that Kagutaba is the name of a demon. The residents of a village called Shimokage once summoned Kagutaba, but imprisoned it for disobeying their commands. An annual ritual was performed to appease Kagutaba until the village was demolished in 1978 to make way for a dam. The final ritual, which was filmed, was performed by a priest and his daughter. At the end of the ritual, the daughter became hysterical; Tanimura says that she was believed to have become possessed by Kagutaba. Kobayashi discovers that the daughter is Junko Ishii. He learns that Ishii worked at a nursing school where she helped perform illegal abortions and stole the fetuses.

Marika reveals that her neighbor Midori committed suicide by hanging. Midori, along with six other people including Osawa, hanged themselves in a park using nooses similar in fashion to Marika's loops. After Marika experiences strange behaviors, she goes with Kobayashi, Miyajima, and Hori to the Shimokage dam to perform the ritual to appease Kagutaba, hoping that doing so will free her from the demon's influence. After Kobayashi and Marika perform the ritual, Hori becomes agitated and runs into a nearby forest, and Kobayashi follows him. Marika flees from Miyajima, but exhibits signs of possession. She flees into the forest, pursued by Miyajima. Meanwhile, Kobayashi and Hori find the villagers' dogs slaughtered near a secluded shrine in the woods. Kobayashi's camera captures an apparition of Kana under a ''torii'', surrounded by writhing fetuses. Marika abruptly recovers.

After delivering Marika and Hori to a hospital, Kobayashi and Miyajima break into Ishii's current home. Inside, they find that she has hanged herself, Kana is dead, and Ishii's young son is alive; a newspaper article then reveals that the boy is not Ishii's son. Kobayashi adopts the boy. Kobayashi returns to Tanimura, who shows him a scroll depicting how Kagutaba was first summoned, wherein baby monkeys were fed to a medium. Ishii tried replicating this by feeding the stolen fetuses to Kana. Marika recovers, and Hori is placed in a mental institution, only to escape and be found dead a day later.

After Kobayashi's disappearance, his video camera is discovered in a package. The tape inside shows the events that led to the destruction of Kobayashi's house: a crazed Hori arrives at the house, revealing the boy to be Kagutaba, incapacitates Kobayashi, and bludgeons the child with a rock. The bloodied boy briefly takes on the appearance of Kagutaba, and a ghostly Kana appears in a corner. Hori leaves with the boy, and Keiko becomes possessed, pouring gasoline on herself and setting herself alight. As the house burns and Kobayashi struggles to get to his feet, the movie ends. A text note says Kobayashi is still missing.

The Stooges are guides (circa late 1800s), who are helping a trio christened "Nell's Belles" travel across the Rocky Mountains to San Francisco, the location of their next performance. While preparing some corned beef, a group of Native Americans urges them to get off their land as soon as possible. Since Curly accidentally scared off the horses earlier, the group is stuck there for the night.

During the night, Moe and Larry angrily tell Curly to sleep by himself because he is barking like a dog in his sleep. Unfortunately, snow falls while they sleep. They awake to discover a bear has devoured their food supply, so the three hapless guides try unsuccessfully to catch some fish in a nearby frozen lake. The fishing expedition is interrupted by Nell (Kathryn Sheldon), who discovers the Belles — Lorna Gray, Dorothy Appleby and Linda Winters — have been abducted by that same tribe. The Belles manage to escape, and the troupe leaves the Native American land quickly.

Brash detective Butch Saunders is demoted from the robbery division to the bureau of missing persons. Captain Webb, his new boss, is unsure whether Butch will fit in or is on his way out of the police department. Webb assigns Joe Musik to show Butch around. Gradually, Butch earns Webb's respect and trust.

Cases the bureau handles include a philandering husband, a child prodigy who yearns to live a normal life, an aging bachelor whose housekeeper has disappeared, and an old lady whose daughter has run away, among others. Hank Slade works doggedly on one particular case - a missing wife - throughout the film, only to discover that she has been working at the bureau the whole time, right under his nose.

When attractive Norma Roberts comes looking for her missing Chicago investment banker husband Therme Roberts, Butch takes the case, making no secret that he is attracted to her, even though they are both married. She, however, keeps him at arm's length. Butch is later shocked when Captain Webb tells him that she is really Norma Phillips and the man she claims is missing is actually the person she was on trial for murdering (before escaping) and not her husband at all. When Butch goes to arrest her at her apartment, he finds her hiding in a closet. Norma begs him to send the other policemen away, telling him she can explain everything. However, when he returns alone, she has fled.

She fakes her suicide by drowning and disappears, but shows up when Butch stages her funeral with a borrowed corpse. When Butch spots her, she tells him that, as Roberts' personal secretary, she discovered he had a mentally defective, idiotic twin brother, whom he took great pains to hide from everyone. She claims that, facing embezzlement charges, Therme murdered his brother and disappeared. Norma attended the funeral in hopes that he would show up as well. She points a man out. Butch and Norma chase him to his apartment building. Butch tells Norma to remain outside for her safety while he apprehends the man. When he returns, Norma has vanished. The man denies being Roberts, but Butch takes him to the police station. There, to his relief, he finds Norma, who had gone for help. Webb tricks him into admitting he is Therme Roberts, and when Butch learns his gold-digging wife Belle never divorced her first husband (the husband shows up at the bureau looking for her), he and Norma are free to be together.

A tornado sweeps through the plains of Kansas, lifting Dorothy and Toto. The two tumble into Oz, landing on the Scarecrow. After freeing him from his pole, the trio stroll together, soon finding a Tin Woodman and oiling him.

After the four watch mating rituals of various animals set to strains of Camille Saint-Saëns's "The Swan", they are welcomed into the Emerald City. Suits of armor sing to them, "Hail to the Wizard of Oz! To the Wizard of Oz we lead the way!" A creature resembling the A-B-Sea Serpent of ''The Royal Book of Oz'' extends itself as stairsteps for Dorothy to enter the coach.

The Wizard is a cackling white-bearded man in a starry black robe and conical hat who produces custom seats for each of the four nervous travelers, including one for Toto (the Toto chair is mostly cut out of the frame in most video versions, but is later shown in a full shot of Toto sitting). He proceeds to perform magic with a hen and eggs. These are variations on simple sleight of hand tricks involving making objects appear, but the hen is able to take the eggs back into her body.

Finally, the hen releases an egg that will not stop growing. The five try to fight it, with the Tin Woodman breaking his axe. Soon, though, the egg hatches, the hen takes the chick, and clucks out "Rock-a-bye Baby" as a chorus joins her.

An aging and wealthy American woman journeys to Rome each year with her chauffeur George to play the card game scopone with destitute Peppino and his wife Antonia. The annual scenario remains unchanged: she donates the initial stakes, then ultimately wins the game, shattering the couple's dream of scoring a victory and improving their lot in life. Eventually their daughter Cleopatra seeks revenge on her parents' behalf.

The Stooges are unsuccessful fish salesmen in San Diego. After becoming fed up with it all, they decide go into the saloon business but accidentally purchase a ''salon'' in the sleepy fictional village of Cucaracha, Mexico. Undaunted, the trio try their hand at giving a customer, Rosita (Dorothy Appleby) a mud pack using, natural, real mud that is actually cement. After chiseling the cement off her face, the boys scalp three other Mexican beauties but however Larry used the hair remover on the other three girls. Just then, Señor Manuel (the girls boss) threatens to kill the Stooges right after what they've done to Rosita and finally removing the three girls' hair bald and then Señor Manuel and the girls were very angry and the Stooges ran off before having their bottoms shot full of holes by Rosita and her sisters' handguns.

The Stooges are inept but honest street cleaners. When they come across an envelope filled with oil bonds in the trash, they return them to their owner, B.O. Davis (John Tyrrell). The grateful Davis offers them a five thousand dollar reward if they can find an honest man with executive abilities. An honest dog ultimately leads them to a weeping girl (Dorothy Appleby), who explains that her sweetheart has been unfairly jailed. The best way to talk to him, the Stooges figure, is to get arrested themselves. They land in the clink and track down their man, Percy Pomeroy (Eddie Laughton). With some black paint, they make their prison outfits look like guard uniforms and make their escape. Just as they are leaving, Davis is coming in — handcuffed to a detective and revealed as "Lone Wolf" Louie, the biggest bond swindler in America." He, along with the Stooges, wind up back in jail. The stooges return to the rock pile where Moe and Larry break rocks over Curly's head.

The story is told in the first person by a married man who has been having an affair with beautiful, 32-year-old Pimlico secretary Carla Moorland. After he sees another man leaving her flat, he assumes it's her lover and the two quarrel, ending in him accidentally striking her dead. He leaves unnoticed, then anonymously tips off the police so that the man he saw, a 51-year-old insurance broker called Paul Menzies, will be arrested. The murder inquiry receives vast media attention and Paul Menzies is eventually arrested and brought to trial. The protagonist is eventually sacked from his job, and puts his family life on hold, attending the courthouse hearings every day. His guilt grows ever larger, and he is consumed by the fear that Menzies will be found innocent and the police will identify him as the real murderer. Despite his fears of being caught, the protagonist returns to the courthouse every day, waiting for the court of law to find Menzies guilty. The protagonist's fears that he will be caught continue to grow, and after a lengthy trial and jury deliberation, he is happy to find out that the jury has reached a verdict. The protagonist returns to the courthouse for the verdict, and when the judge asks the foreman to stand and read the verdict, the protagonist stands and delivers the verdict of "Guilty", thus bringing out the twist in the tale, which is so aptly described by the book’s title.

Category:1988 short stories Category:British short stories Category:Crime short stories

The plot explores the relationships shared by the residents of a seedy boarding house owned by dour Mrs. Brent. Among them are busker Wanda Fleming, who is flattered by the attention paid her by rebellious pop songwriter wannabe Mickey Hollister, and former schoolmaster James Wallraven, who has been accused of pedophilia and reduced to working as a janitor in an art gallery.

The Stooges awake one morning to their mother's cry, "Now that I'm old, your father has divorced me!" The newspaper article states that their father (Shemp Howard, pulling double duty as both himself and his father) has just become rich via an oil well, has divorced, and that very day will marry a young, gold-digging blonde named Daisy (Connie Cezon). The Stooges set off to try and stop the wedding. But since Shemp and his father look exactly alike, Daisy ends up marrying the wrong man. In the finale of the short, the Stooges manage to escape the clutches of the criminals trying to kill them for their father's oil money, and rescue their father.

The book begins in Sudan, where God, disguised as a Dinka woman, attempts to help out around a refugee camp. She speaks with the American diplomats visiting the camp, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, about finding the missing brother of the body she inhabits. While she is there, the camp is attacked by the Sudanese government, killing everyone, including God. The rest of the book focuses on how things unravel after God's death. A high school graduate watches in horror as a priest commits suicide. Soon after, a group of childhood friends form a suicide pact after all their relatives die in the chaos. People later begin to worship their children in the absence of religion, while the psychiatrists tasked to disrupt such unproductive behavior are the most hated people alive. The dogs who ate God's corpse are revealed to possess a higher knowledge, but this brings only death to all but one of them. The book closes with a view into war in this Godless world, where religious wars have been replaced by ideological wars between supporters of evolutionary psychology versus postmodernism.

The play opens with the sound of the artist, Donner, falling down the stairs. The other two roommates, Martello and Beauchamp, enter and find him at the bottom of the staircase. Beauchamp, an artist whose focus is on the sounds of daily life, examines a recording of the sounds of Donner's fall. The pair decides that a murderer must have awakened Donner from his sleep and then pushed him down the stairs to his death. Martello and Beauchamp accuse each other of the crime. The following scenes flash back to several different years at least 50 years in the past. This part of the play follows the three artists and their interactions with a blind woman named Sophie. The end of the play returns to the present. Martello and Beauchamp are unable to solve the mystery.

The film's title is a reference to the staircases inside a public, overcrowded New York City high school of 3,000 students of various races and ethnicities, many of whom are troubled and disadvantaged; a few are gang members. Sylvia Barrett, fresh out of graduate school, has just been hired to teach English but is disheartened by the school's burdensome regulations, daily reporting and other paperwork. Her students are often disruptive and undisciplined. The students include Alice, who has a crush on a male teacher and narrowly avoids death after jumping out a school window; Linda, who is physically abused by her father; Joe, who is on court probation and has a high I.Q. but a mixed academic record, testing Sylvia's patience; and Roy, who works nights and falls asleep in class. Some of the teaching staff have an antagonistic relationship with the students and disagree with Sylvia's calm, quiet approach, but she intends to infuse the students with learning and skills to succeed after high school. She finally succeeds in engaging her students in a lively discussion about classic literature (comparing "the best of times ... the worst of times" to their own lives), followed by a lively mock trial, as she ponders and ultimately decides against resignation.

On Halloween night, 1998, at Cornell University, Tom Bailey, Jr., dressed as Bill Clinton, slips into bed with his pre-arranged date, Monica. It turns out to be her roommate Hannah. Tom likes her because she is honest and does not fling herself at him. Ten years later, they are best friends. He is wealthy, as he invented the "coffee collar" and gets a dime every time it is used. Tom is with a different girl every week, while Hannah focuses on her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is very content with life, and thinks she is too.

After taking Hannah to his father's sixth wedding, she tells Tom she must go to Scotland for work. He discovers that without her, being with a different woman week after week is not fulfilling. Realizing he loves her, he decides to confess his feelings when she gets back. Upon returning, Hannah surprisingly introduces Colin, a wealthy Scot, as her fiancé. She asks Tom to be her maid of honor and Tom decides to do it upon his other friends' advice, to spend time with her, convincing her to marry him instead.

He is introduced to the other three bridesmaids. One is Melissa, Hannah's cousin and a disgruntled ex. She hates him even more when she doesn't get to be the maid of honor. So, when Tom throws the bridal shower, Melissa sabotages it by giving him a business card for entertainment, which turns out to be for a sex toy party. Hannah gets upset and leaves. Again seeking advice from his other friends, they teach him what a maid of honor must remember. The next day, he takes Hannah shopping, impressing her. Afterwards, she tells him she is moving to Scotland with Colin after the wedding.

After arriving in Scotland at Eilean Donan Castle, Tom realizes he is running out of time to stop Hannah. He meets Colin's family and must participate in a variant of the Highland Games, in which the groom competes to prove himself worthy of his bride. He also competes, but loses in the last round. Tom takes Hannah out for a walk, planning to tell her his feelings. The other bridesmaids interrupt for Hannah's bachelorette party. On her Hen Night, Hannah sells her kisses for change in a pub. As she goes around, Tom kisses Hannah. Though it starts as a peck on the cheek, it becomes a passionate kiss.

That night, when Hannah tries to ask Tom about the kiss, her drunk cousin is in his room, trying to have sex with him. Hannah leaves and Tom runs after her. Then he knocks on her door, pleading for her to let him in. She refuses and asks about the kiss. He tells her he knows he, not Colin, is the one for her. She refuses to cave in and instead tells Tom she will still marry Colin the next day. He cannot watch Hannah and Colin get married so he decides to go home.

When questioned about Tom's sudden departure shortly before the wedding, Hannah informs Colin he is just afraid of losing her. On the way home, Tom realizes that he must stop the wedding and goes back on horseback. Just as the priest asks for objections, Tom is sent flying with his horse and through the chapel doors. Seeing her best friend on the floor, Hannah rushes to him. As he struggles to stand up, he tells her that he loves her more than anything and that she should marry him. They then share a kiss. Hannah tells Colin that she is very sorry and that he is the perfect guy, just not for her. Colin's aunt then tells Colin, in Scots, to punch Tom, which he does immediately.

Hannah and Tom eventually get married. Melissa catches the bouquet and then links arms with Tom's dad. On their honeymoon, Tom turns on the light just to make sure he has got the right girl and Hannah replies "You do". They kiss and as Hannah turns off the light, Tom saying "Oh, Monica" and Hannah replies "Oh, Bill."

The story of Oswald Bastable's adventures "trapped forever in the shifting tides of time" is framed with the concept of the book being a long lost manuscript, as related by Moorcock's grandfather. Several years after Bastable disappeared in 1910, the elder Moorcock travels to China in an attempt to track him down, meeting Una Persson of the Jerry Cornelius novels on the way who before disappearing leaves him a manuscript written by Bastable for Moorcock, relating what happened to Bastable after he unexpectedly left the elder Moorcock at the end of ''Warlord of the Air'', probably bound for another alternate 20th century.

Bastable's story takes in a post-apocalyptic early twentieth century between 1904 and 1908, where Western Europe and the United States have been devastated by accelerated technological change caused by a prolific Chilean inventor, which led to a prolonged global war causing their reversion to barbarism. By contrast, South Africa, rechristened Bantustan, is ruled by President Mohandas Gandhi, has never had apartheid, and is an oasis of civilisation which stayed out of the conflict being an affluent, technologically advanced nation in this alternate, anti-imperialist twentieth century. To restore civilisation and social order in the afflicted Northern Hemisphere, a 'Black Attila', General Cicero Hood, leads an African army to beneficent if paternalist conquest of Europe and an apocalyptic war against the United States featuring the "vast, moving ziggurat of destruction" of the title.

The historical personage of our world appearing as alternate versions of themselves include: * Mahatma Gandhi is president of the wealthy, Marxist Republic of Bantustan; * Al Capone is a dashing flyer for the Republic of Bantustan (although the novel takes place before the real Capone was 10 years old). * Herbert Hoover is a racist New York City gangster organizing the city's last stand against the black, African-based Ashanti Empire. White Americans have re-introduced African-American slavery as they blame the latter as scapegoats for epidemics that were actually initiated by biological warfare among the perished Western nations; * P. J. Kennedy is an amateur explosives hack which makes him the local mob lord or tribal chief of Wilmington (it is not made clear whether this is Wilmington, New York, Wilmington Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, or Wilmington Township, Mercer County, Pennsylvania or Wilmington, Delaware, only that it is situated between New York City and Washington, D.C.) * Frederic Courtland Penfield, formerly a US diplomat in our world as well as the one Bastable visits, is founder of a new Ku Klux Klan. He also serves as a nominal 'president' over a ''de facto'', skeletal 'United States', in Washington, D.C. The former capital has been surprisingly immune from bombing and missile attack (as the government had fled into subterranean shelters at the beginning of the Great War) which makes up most of his realm. In some editions, the character is renamed "Beesley", whose description resembles that of Bishop Beesley, a character from the Jerry Cornelius novels. * Paul Robeson is a leader of slaves in Washington, D.C. * Joseph Conrad as submarine captain Joseph Korzeniowski.

In a story introduced by the ubiquitous Una Persson (who is also found in other works by Moorcock), the trilogy's hero, Captain Oswald Bastable, finds himself in an alternative twentieth century in which the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War and neither the First World War nor the October Revolution ever occurred. Over the course of the story Oswald witnesses the destruction of Singapore at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Aerial Navy, is imprisoned on Rishiri Island, joins the Russian Imperial Airship Navy and is sent to put down the rebellious Cossacks who follow the theocratic demagogue known as the 'Steel Tsar': Iosif Djugashvili. He also experiences a repeat of events from the first novel as he is assigned to drop an atomic bomb on the anarchist Nestor Makhno and his Black Flag Army, but ultimately this does not happen; the bomb is turned against the Steel Tsar's own forces and Makhno survives.

''Warlord of the Air''

In the first book, ''Warlord of the Air'', Bastable finds himself transported to an alternate late-20th century Earth where the European powers did not stir each other into a World War and in which the mighty airships of a British Empire on which the sun never sets are threatened by the rise of new and terrible enemies. These enemies turn out to be the colonized peoples trying to break free, supported by anarchist and socialist Western saboteurs opposing their own imperialist societies, and led by a Chinese general whose country is still nominally under Western control and ravaged by civil war.

''The Land Leviathan''

In ''The Land Leviathan'', Bastable visits an alternate 1904 in which most of the Western world has been devastated around the turn of the 20th century by a short, yet terrible war fought with futuristic devices and in which also biological weapons were used. In this alternate world, an Afro-American "Black Attila" is conquering the remnants of the Western nations, destroyed by the wars. The only remaining stable surviving nations, aside from the African-based Ashanti Empire, are an isolationist Australasian-Japanese Federation, which opposes the Ashanti Empire, and the wealthy Marxist Republic of Bantustan, formerly known as South Africa which is led by its Indian-born president Mahatma Gandhi; having never known apartheid or hostilities between the British and the Boers, it is a wealthy, pacifist utopia, in which there is no racial tension.

''The Steel Tsar''

In the final book, ''The Steel Tsar'', Bastable witnesses an alternate 1941 where Great Britain and Germany became allies around the turn of the 20th century and thus neither the War of 1914 nor the October Revolution took place. In this world's Russian Empire, a much more stable and democratic nation than the real Russia has ever been, Bastable encounters a terrorist group which seeks to overthrow the Russian government and install a theocracy led by the religious fanatic Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili.

At an International Congress at an Aero Club, explorers from around the world argue about the best way to fly to the North Pole. All are in disagreement until the congress's president, the engineer Maboul of France, explains his plans for an "Aero-Bus," an airplane with a passenger car and a huge figurehead in the shape of a bird head. The proceedings are interrupted by a group of militant suffragettes, who announce their intention to go to the Pole themselves. When they have been chased off, the Congress nominates an international group of experts to accompany Maboul to the Pole: Run-Ever of England, Bluff-"Allo"-Bill of America, Choukroutman of Germany, Cerveza of Spain, Tching-Tchun of China, and Ka-Ko-Ku of Japan. Maboul takes his colleagues to his office to study the model of his invention, and then to the electricity-powered factory where the real thing is being constructed. The leader of the suffragettes moves on with her own plans to get to the Pole, building a machine fitted with propellers and a multitude of toy balloons, but it fails to get off the ground.

The completed Aero-Bus lifts off to great acclaim, though it meets with two difficulties; first the suffragette leader tries to board with the expedition at the last moment, and then the explorer Tching-Tchun, arriving late, is accidentally left behind. The race to the Pole attracts many other adventurers, who depart in their own machines; soon the sky is full of aircraft of every shape and size. Both Tching-Tchun and the suffragette leader attempt to make it to the Pole in a balloon, but again meet with failure. (The explorer falls a short distance to the ground and gives up; the suffragette, having held on longer, falls onto a church steeple and explodes.) Meanwhile, the Aero-Bus continues through the sky unimpeded, passing various planets and constellations.

The aircraft skims down over the ice of the Arctic and finally crash-lands. The delegates make it out of the wreck, safe and sound. Almost immediately, however, they run into an obstacle: the Giant of the Snows, a pipe-smoking, man-eating frost giant who has to be scared off with cannon fire. They come at last to the pole proper, where they find a huge magnetic needle. Stuck by magnetic attraction to the needle, which breaks under their weight and plunges them into the icy waters, they signal for help and are picked up by a passing airship. Penguins, seals, and Arctic birds wave goodbye. The explorers return in triumph to the Aero Club, where they bow to all assembled.

A Select Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom meets to discuss a ridiculous scandal on which the tabloid press has begun focusing. The papers allege that some mystery woman has accused 128 members of the House of sexual promiscuity. The six members of the Committee look into it so as to maintain the House's good name. Ironically, each member of the committee reminds the secretary, Miss. Madeleine Gotobed, not to bring up their most recent rendezvous. They do not want the press to get the wrong idea. It turns out that the secretary, who is not very adept at dictation, is the woman who has been spotted with all of these men. The curtain falls and then rises again for ''New-Found-Land'' in which an older and a younger man, two Home Office officials, briefly discuss the naturalization of an American into British citizenship (based on the real-life naturalization of the play's director, ED Berman MBE). They laud the American nation as a whole, including every American patriotic cliché they can remember. Eventually, the Select Committee returns and tries to reclaim its room. The play ends with Maddie and M.P. French passing a new report that clears all men of having done wrong.

Mad scientist Dr. Machino has sent his robots to pollute the earth and endanger the wildlife. Aided by Killer Bee and Rad Rhino, Awesome Possum sets out to destroy the robots, put a stop to the mad scientist and save the world.

The book tells of the experiences of a young architect, Edward Westray, who is sent to the remote town of Cullerne to supervise restoration work on Cullerne Minster. He finds himself caught up in Cullerne life, and hears rumours about a mystery surrounding the claim to the title of Lord Blandamer, whose coat of arms in the Minster's great transept window is the nebuly coat of the title. When the new Lord Blandamer arrives, promising to pay all the costs of the restoration, Westray suspects that the new lord is not what he seems.

''The Telegraph'' said the book "could strike the careless reader as no more than a curiosity, a bit of amateur work. Yet this would be a mistake."

The book opens in the autumn of 1558, just after the death of Mary I, and bells are heralding the fact that Mary's half-sister, Elizabeth, is now queen. The book is told from four main perspectives: Elizabeth I's; William Cecil's, the queen's main advisor; Robert Dudley, the queen's favourite; and Amy Robsart's, who is Robert Dudley's wife. Robert Dudley returns to court upon Elizabeth's coronation, and Amy hopes that his ambitions will not get him into trouble. During Mary's reign, Dudley was kept in the Tower of London, his father and brother were executed, and another brother died in Calais. However, her hopes for the quiet life soon die, as Elizabeth and Robert become closer and more intimate.

Elizabeth has inherited a bankrupt and rebellious country, in turmoil as a result of the previous two monarch's reigns. Her advisor, William Cecil, warns that she will only survive if she marries a strong prince, but the only man that Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, and married man, Robert Dudley. Robert is sure that he can reclaim his destiny at Elizabeth's side. And as queen and courtier fall in love, Dudley begins to contemplate the impossible – setting aside his loving wife to marry the young Elizabeth...

The play is set in the interrogation room of a downtown New York City police station in the early hours of July 5. Two hardened cops (Sergeant Kelly and Jack Delasante) have arrested two suspects for the murder of an old woman. During the interrogations, the police try to get confessions from the two suspects, Sean and Jimmy. As they do, they reveal far more about their own vulnerabilities than they intend. The tension of the play is increased by constant updates, by phone, of the state of mind of one of Kelly's daughters. Lonely and unstable, she becomes increasingly suicidal during the play.

Jimmy (Alan Rosenberg) Sgt Kelly (George Dzunda) Jack Delasante (Jeffrey DeMunn) Sean ( Laurence Luckinbill)

After five years of marriage, chemical engineer Lorenzo Xavier Vega (Desi Arnaz) tends to neglect his wife Susan (Lucille Ball) in favor of his work. When she wishes aloud that she had a more attentive spouse, her Guardian Angel – coincidentally the mirror image of her favorite movie star (James Mason) – appears.

The angel advises Susan to take a greater interest in Lorenzo's career, so she agrees to accompany him on a camping trip to test the revolutionary new insecticide he's developed. However, Susan's dream of a second honeymoon turns into a nightmare when everything that possibly could go wrong does. She becomes determined to save her marriage before it's too late.

Tiska (Dorothy Appleby), Taska (Mary Ainslee) and Baska (Ethelreda Leopold) Jones, three snippy society girls, are willed a huge inheritance so long as they are married by a certain time and date, but their fiances postpone their engagements as they, along with the Fleet, are bound for Honolulu. Their shrewd lawyer Diggins (Richard Fiske) suggests they marry three death row inmates, the Mushroom Murder Gang (the Stooges) to retain the dough; once they are married, they get their inheritance, the convicts are hanged, and the girls can marry their fiances free and clear. The girls soon show up to the Stooges' cell and marry the three inmates, then the girls depart. (Moe and Curly, disappointed that they did not receive a wedding kiss, give each other a kiss instead.)

The Stooges are brought to the scaffold at Hang-em'-all Prison as other prisoners watch from the stands. But the ropes break during the hanging attempt, and the Stooges and the warden are tangled in a mess below the scaffold. A message arrives saying the governor has pardoned the Stooges after Mickey Finn and his gang confessed to the Mushroom murders, and the boys are freed. As the girls celebrate their new bout of widowhood, the Stooges make their way into their house and make themselves at home.

Mortified, the devious debutantes try to think up an excuse to divorce their new beaus and decide to force them to become society gentlemen, something they feel the Stooges will be unable to accomplish. However, the Stooges realize what their wives are up to and decide they need to succeed so their wives cannot throw them out. After enrolling the Stooges in an ill-fated dance lesson, and after finding them to be more accommodating to entering society, the girls turn to their lawyer again for help. They demand Diggins fix this mess they're in because he was the one who got them to marry the Stooges in the first place. He suggests that the girls throw a formal party, hoping the Stooges will make shambles of the evening. They do, and Diggins bribes the maître d’, Williams (John Tyrrell) to hit Moe with a large cake to make it look like Moe was guilty. However, his plan fails as the girls' society friends sympathize with Moe and blame Williams for setting him up. The evening ends with the Stooges' first genuine pie fight. Diggins chastises the boys for their social ineptness and threatens to annul their marriages at once. However, the girls have had enough of Diggins and decides to keep the Stooges as their husbands. They, along with the Stooges and the other guests in attendance, strike back at Diggins by covering him in pie from head to toe.

The Stooges are vaudeville entertainers who trek to Mexico to perform their gag bullfight shtick, with Curly as the brave matador, and Moe and Larry dressed in a bull costume. Along the way, they cross paths with attractive senorita Dolores Sanchez (Suzanne Kaaren). They also cross paths with her evil jealous, and hot-tempered, man-hating husband named José (Harry Burns) who threatens to kill Curly if he ever flirters his wife again with which any weapon he would use. The next day at the bullfighting arena and during the comedy bullfight, José does recognize Curly and his friends (That Moe and Larry didn't do anything to his wife). And in an act of revenge on Curly for flirting with Dolores and entering their house with Moe and Larry, José pays the bullring attendants to release a live bull into the ring. Moe and Larry flee the ring, but Curly is unaware of the switch. He eventually head-butts the wild animal, and is paraded out of the ring to the rousing cheers of "Olé, Americano!"

The Stooges are vaudeville entertainers who trek to Mexico to perform their burlesque bullfight, with Joe as the brave matador, and Moe and Larry dressed in a bull costume. Unfortunately, their gig is canceled when they arrive. According to the trio, the manager fired them after they refused to do 10 additional shows for free. With no money to return home, the Stooges are stranded. Feeling bad for them, attractive señorita Greta (Greta Thyssen) gets the boys a gig at the local bull ring. However, when she leaves Greta mistakenly takes the trio's suitcase instead of hers. When they go retrieve it, however, Joe becomes attracted to Greta and begins to kiss her, infuriating her insanely jealous husband José (George J. Lewis).

The next day, the Stooges perform their act successfully at a bullring José recognizes the trio. In an act of revenge he pays the bullring attendant (Joe Palma) to release a live bull into the ring. Moe and Larry flee, but Joe is unaware of the switch. He eventually head-butts the wild animal, and is paraded out of the ring to the rousing cheers of "Olé, Americano!"

Silvia is a young peasant girl who loves and is loved by Arlequin. Prior to the opening of the play, the prince meets her and instantly falls in love with her. He pretends to be a simple officer of the prince and befriends her. He is required by law to marry a commoner, so he sends his forces to kidnap her.

The play opens with Silvia in the palace, pining for her lover, Arlequin, who has also been brought to court. A female servant of the prince, Flaminia, devises a plan to separate the two lovers. She appeals to Silvia's vanity, by suggesting that she needs a more worthy lover. The prince, still disguised as the officer of the palace, continues to be her friend; and Silvia soon realizes that he is a better catch than Arlequin. Meanwhile, Flaminia befriends Arlequin and gradually seduces him away from Silvia. However, both Arlequin and Silvia feel indebted one to the other and are reluctant to separate.

When the prince finally reveals himself, both Arlequin and Silvia are relieved to know that they have an excuse to call off their engagement. The play ends with the union of the two couples: Silvia and the prince, and Flaminia and Arlequin.

Jimmy Morrell (Charles Farrell) and Norma Nelson (Bette Davis) who plan to wed as soon as their neighborhood pharmacy begins to show a profit. The opportunity arises when former bootlegger Dutch Barnes (Ricardo Cortez) offers Jimmy a job duplicating name brand toothpaste and cosmetics that can be made cheaply and then sold in the bottles and jars of reputable pharmaceutical companies at regular prices. When Dutch asks him to copy the formula for a popular brand of antiseptic, Jimmy refuses, claiming he's unable to get a key ingredient, but when Dutch offers him a bonus hefty enough to allow Jimmy to marry Norma, he agrees.

Dutch's ex-girlfriend Lily Duran (Glenda Farrell) jealous over his attentions to another woman, notifies the antiseptic company about the deception, and is murdered by Dutch. Without their key witness, the company is forced to drop their lawsuit against Jimmy. Now beholden to Dutch, he is forced to make fake digitalis drug. Norma is given some of the drug during childbirth, causing her to lose the baby.

Jimmy seeks vengeance against Dutch, but before he can achieve his goal Sheffner, who formulated the antiseptic Jimmy manufactured, shoots Dutch. Jimmy confesses everything to the district attorney and is exonerated, allowing him and Norma to return to life as they once knew it.

''Invasion of the Sea'' takes place in a future 1930s and follows the story of European engineers and their military escort who seek to revive an actual 19th century proposal to flood the Sahara desert with waters from the Mediterranean Sea to create an inland "Sahara Sea" for both commercial and military purposes. The French military escort, led by Captain Hardigan, meet with conflict from Tuareg Berber tribes who fear the new sea will threaten their nomadic way of life. The Berber tribes, led by the warlord Hadjar, begin an insurgency campaign against the Europeans in an effort to derail their plans for the inland sea. Captain Hardigan attempts to retaliate against the Berbers and bring Hadjar to justice. Ultimately, however, a disastrous earthquake strikes. This earthquake floods the Sahara to an extent beyond even limits which were proposed by the Europeans, and drowns the insurgent Tuaregs.

The residents of a small Texas town fight back against the mythical chupacabra, after multiple farm animals and several human residents are killed.

As the story of Father Tim's Episcopalian Mitford parish continues, he finds himself in the very thick of things. Far from the bachelor life he knew for 62 years, he now finds himself opening his home to a myriad of friends, neighbors, and other lost souls, each giving new meaning to his God-centered life.

Category:1999 American novels Category:Novels by Jan Karon Category:Novels set in North Carolina

A young American man arrives in Palermo by plane. A taxi driver at the airport immediately gets word to Frank Ginetta (Kirk Douglas), who hides, armed with a gun, until he realizes that the visitor he's been warned about is actually his younger brother Vinnie (Alex Cord).

Frank happily welcomes his brother and takes him home, catching up on old times. But his wife, Ida (Irene Papas), reminds him that "they're going to send someone," suggesting that perhaps Vinnie is the one.

In a flashback, Frank recalls better times in New York City, beginning with Vinnie's homecoming from military service and subsequent marriage to Emma Bertolo (Susan Strasberg). The father of the bride, Dominick Bertolo (Luther Adler) is a Mafia don, as is the groom's brother, Frank. And among those paying their respects as guests at the wedding are mob leaders like Egan (Murray Hamilton), Rotherman (Val Avery) and Levin (Alan Hewitt), who are the equals of Frank and Dominick in the New York region's organized crime.

These capos within the Organization meet as a board to coordinate their business. The majority becomes increasingly unhappy with Frank's position, as he seems opposed to every new idea. Frank also dispenses justice on his own in the old Sicilian fashion, without seeking approval from the others. They, not being of Sicilian origin, are trying to leave behind the old traditional methods, such as when two of Frank's hit men kill a stool pigeon in the marshes and leave him tied to a chair with a canary stuffed in his mouth, as a warning to others who might talk too much.

Frank still fondly remembers his father, who also was a mafioso who was assassinated in a hit. Vinnie is more of a businessman, and takes sides with the other board members in ventures they intend to pursue without his brother. Frank resents this, striking Vinnie for defying him and insisting to the board that Vinnie will have no part in what they have planned.

Older members of the organization who are no longer involved in decision-making tell Frank that it was Dom Bertolo who made it possible for outsiders to spot and find members of their Mafia family, resulting in 41 murders, Frank's father included. Bertolo had taken up outside of the family 35 years earlier with Irish and Jewish outsiders who wanted to get in the Mafia, and by doing so secured his own power in the larger, expanded outfit against older members like Frank's father. Frank is conflicted because Bertolo is his brother's father in law, but the Sicilian code of honor decides what he must do. Pretending to reconcile with Dominick for past differences, he offers to submit to the new deal, while in reality he is taking him to a deserted warehouse to be executed. As he realizes what his fate is, a terrified Dominick collapses from heart failure.

Frank hides out in Sicily, but knows his days are numbered and that the Board plans to have him killed. Realizing that it is Vinnie who has been forced under threats by Egan to do the job of killing him, Frank bitterly accepts this fate in the hope that it will save his brother's life and that of his family back in America. Vinnie realizes at last that he has been played like a puppet all along against his well-meaning brother, who in order to protect him lays down his own life, handing Vinnie their father's shotgun with which to shoot him.

The story takes place at St. Mark's, a Catholic boarding school for girls. One day, a young student, Elizabeth, is studying in a classroom on the third floor when, without warning, she is attacked by unseen evil forces. One of St. Mark's priests, Father Drake, attempts to save Elizabeth from the apparently demonic aggressor, but he quickly proves to be powerless against it, and the girl vanishes without a trace.

The school is immediately shut down, and all of the students are removed from campus by worried families. Five years later, the school reopens. A harsh headmistress, Miss Pearce, rules the girls with an iron fist; Father Drake remains at the school as a teacher, but, because of Elizabeth's disappearance, he has become a drunkard, and was found by Miss Pearce at a bar. Five troubled and unwanted girls are left by their families at the school: Alex, Mara, Cecilia (who is blind), Leah, and Connie. The girls are strictly forbidden to go to the third floor (the site of Elizabeth's disappearance). Cecilia and Mara enter the third floor, prompting Miss Pearce to punish the responsible party. Alex takes the blame, and is caned on her panties in front of the other girls.

Alex begins to have visions of Elizabeth being possessed by a demon. Other strange things begin to happen, revealing that all five girls possess supernatural gifts. Connie is a "conduit", or a magnet for spirit activity, Leah can pass through objects (though not doors or walls), Cecilia has "second sight" or what the viewer could interpret as ESP, Mara can heal recent wounds (she heals Alex after her beating), and Alex has telekinesis.

It is revealed that Miss Pearce has brought the girls to the school for a very specific reason and is seen conjuring them to a pentagram on the third floor, after which Connie appears to be possessed. Connie attempts to drown Leah and the demon passes into her while Connie falls dead. The possessed Leah (who can now pass through doors) goes to confront Father Drake, at which time the name of the demon is revealed: Legion. They argue, Father Drake attempts to exorcise her, and Leah uses her newfound demon powers to stab him with gold crucifixes. Alex, Mara, and Cecilia have been reading Elizabeth's journal, which appeared after Connie's possession, and have learned enough about Legion to know that they need to escape. They split up to search for the others, Mara finding Father Drake, Alex finding Connie, and Cecilia running into the demon.

After a prolonged fight where Cecilia is severely bloodied and Leah's head is smashed in with a book, Legion moves on to Cecilia and grants her "first sight". Terrified, Mara and Alex try to flee, but Ms. Pearce locks them in and breaks Mara's healing hand. It is revealed that Ms. Pearce is Elizabeth's sister, and is trying to save her from Legion. Mara and Alex then hole up in the bedroom and use Connie's spellbook to create a protective circle. Cecilia/Legion finds them and, while she cannot initially penetrate the circle, uses her own blood to cover over the lines and then possesses Mara.

Miss Pearce is in another part of the building, chanting. Elizabeth's body slowly begins to appear before vanishing again. Mara is chasing Alex, who gets stabbed in the stomach. Miss Pearce begs Legion to let Elizabeth go, but is told that they only have four girls and the deal was for five. Alex then uses her own powers of telekinesis to force Legion out of Mara and into Miss Pearce before ramming the demon's head through a crucifix. Mara and Alex collapse and, presumably several hours later, Mara awakes and heals herself, but is unable to heal Alex in time. She begins to leave and encounters Virgil (a man in monkish robes, who appears to be a type of groundskeeper and is seen briefly throughout the movie). Elizabeth comes running down the stairs, whole and alive, and greets him as father (cue Mara's exit). He is happy and excited, until a bloody Miss Pearce grabs him by the throat and transfers Legion to him. Elizabeth screams and cries as the film ends.

The Hadley family lives in an automated house called "the Happylife Home,” filled with machines that aid them in completing everyday tasks, such as tying their shoes, bathing them, or cooking their food. The two children, Peter and Wendy, enjoy time in the "nursery", a virtual reality room able to realistically reproduce any place they imagine, and grow increasingly attached to it.

The parents, George and Lydia, begin to wonder if there is something wrong with their way of life. Lydia tells George, "That's just it. I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot." They are perplexed that the nursery is stuck on an African landscape setting, with lions in the distance, eating an unidentifiable animal carcass. There they also find recreations of their personal belongings and hear strangely familiar screams. Wondering why their children are so concerned with this scene of death, they decide to call a psychologist.

The psychologist, David McClean, suggests they turn off the house, move to the country, and learn to be more self-sufficient. Peter and Wendy strongly resist and beg their parents to let them have one last visit to the nursery. They give in and allow the children more time in the nursery. When George and Lydia come to fetch them, the children lock their parents into the nursery with the pride of lions, the two realizes that the screams belonged to simulated versions of themselves. Shortly after, David comes by to look for George and Lydia. He finds the children enjoying lunch in the nursery and sees the lions and vultures eating carcasses in the distance, which are implied to be the parents.

In the midst of the economic decline — following drought and the end of slavery — in the province of Bahia in Northeastern Brazil, the poor of the backlands are attracted by the charismatic figure and simple religious teachings of Antonio Conselheiro, called "The Counselor", who preaches that the end of the world is imminent and that the political chaos that surrounds the collapse of the Empire of Brazil and its replacement by a republic is the work of the devil.

Seizing a fazenda in an area blighted by economic decline at Canudos the Counselor's followers build a large town and repeatedly defeat growing military expeditions designed to remove them. As the state's violence against them increases, they too turn increasingly violent, even seizing the modern weapons deployed against them. In an epic final clash, a whole army is sent to extirpate Canudos and instigates a terrible and brutal battle with the poor while politicians of the old order see their world destroyed in the conflagration.

An elderly woman prepares to celebrate the anniversary of her marriage to her late husband. She steals what she needs and ends up taking home a baby that she finds at a bus stop.

In New Orleans, a man named George covered in blood running towards a policeman who subdues and begins to arrest him when George ignores his commands to stop.

Two days earlier, George is going to see Judith for one last job. George is a recovering addict and he is hoping to use the money from the job to leave New Orleans and start a new life with his girlfriend Jenny. He goes to meet Eddie behind a bar, collect a CD and deliver it to Pat. Yet, when he arrives, Eddie has been attacked and the disc destroyed. Eddie, barely alive, uses his bloody finger to scrawl some letters and numbers on George's forearm before he dies.

In the background, a vampire runs past George, who flees into the bar Eddie had come from. However, indoors he runs into his old dealer who wants payment for the drugs. George is then water tortured in the bathroom until the vampire kills the dealer. Not wanting to stay long, George runs to Pat's apartment with the code. Pat sends the code to Cynthia in Los Angeles. Feeling that his job is done George heads back to his place. As Pat is about to hack into a website, he witnesses Cynthia on a webcam being beheaded by another vampire.

George returns to his apartment to find Jenny upset and in withdrawal. George feels he has been followed and hides with Jenny in the closet. A vampire has followed George to his apartment and now is looking for him. George uses a nailbat to attack and escape from the vampire. Confused, they both run to see Pat, only to find him bleeding to death. He asks George to deliver a message to Judith and begs George to kill him. When he hesitates, Pat becomes a vampire, only to have Jenny behead him with a katana. Wanting answers, they head for Judith who tells them to take the message to Chad.

They arrive at Chad's with the message. Written in a hidden code, Chad needs time to crack it. While waiting outside, George and Jenny talk about what they will do after Cynthia pays him. Suddenly, Jenny is pulled backward into a below-ground alley by a vampire. George follows and finds her bleeding and transforming into a vampire. She attacks him, and he is forced to kill Jenny with a length of pipe. He goes back into the building only to find a bloody stump of Chad's arm, clutching a piece of paper on which the decoded message is written.

After reading the message, George runs into the street. We come back to when George is being arrested and discovers the message reveals the vampires' plan – a "feeding" in Barrow, Alaska, which will take place the following night.

A sweet-natured guy enlists his best friend, and an engineer who lost his job and has an attitude problem, to help him create and market his idea for a rocket-powered belt. The entrepreneur never loses his confidence the idea will work even though he runs into problems that include finding investors and disagreements with his engineer.

During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the young Inge Wagner and Luftwaffe Fliegerleutnant (Flight Lieutenant) Herbert Koch meet, and within a few days fall in love. They make plans for their joint future, but before they can get married, Herbert is seconded to the Condor Legion and ordered to the Spanish Civil War; he is forced to leave immediately without giving Inge any explanation. The mission is top secret and all contact with home is forbidden, including by letter, and he is unable to contact her with an explanation. When after several months the operation is over, and Herbert is recovering from a severe injury, he is at last able to write to Inge, but she has moved in the meantime and he is unable to trace her.

Inge meanwhile is unable to forget Herbert, and is prepared to wait for him. Three years go by. When the war begins with the Invasion of Poland in 1939, the men from Inge's area all go off to the front, including Inge's childhood friend, Helmut Winkler, whose proposal of marriage she has turned down, but who continues to hope for her hand. Helmut is assigned to a Squadron where he is put directly under Herbert, who has meanwhile been promoted to Hauptmann (Group Captain). The two become friends, not knowing that they both love the same girl.

Since the beginning of the war, a big musical event has taken place in Berlin every week, which is broadcast on the radio as '' '' and provides a channel for greetings and messages between the front and home. When Herbert, remembering the beautiful days with Inge, asks for the Olympic fanfares, Inge, who is listening at home like every one else, hears it and is encouraged by this sudden sign out of the blue to discover Herbert's whereabouts, with renewed hope of seeing him again. They exchange letters, and arrange to meet in Hamburg.

However, at the last moment before the meeting, Herbert and Helmut are both ordered off on a reconnaissance flight over the Atlantic and are shot down. A German U-boat picks them up. Meanwhile, Inge is waiting in vain. Helmut is taken wounded to the military hospital, where all three meet in his sickroom. After sorting out the confused situation – Herbert assumes that Inge and Helmut are engaged – the two lovers are reunited.

Armelia is an orphan girl who is part of a music group who sings for work. One day, while the group was at Governor-General Lanceman's mansion, she meets Luce Lanceman, the Governor-General's nephew, who lost his parents when he was young and would inherit the Governor-General's position after he passes away. Armeria fell in love with Luce, but unfortunately, he was kidnapped by the notorious pirate, Skulls, while he was showing her the armeria flower for which she was named. Seeing Skulls' 'God of Death' tattoo on his chest, Armeria swears to herself that one day she'll rescue Luce from the hands of the pirates. Eight years later, she disguises herself as a boy and joins Skulls' crew to search for Luce, but the truth of what happened to her childhood love is not what she thought it was.

While singing to herself, Armeria is shot by a crew member who mistakenly believes that she is a mermaid come to sink the ship. Skulls rescues her, but as the crew are examining her wound, they discover her to be a woman. Her true gender exposed, she reveals that she has come to find Luce, only to be told by Skulls that Luce is dead, having killed himself long ago. She refuses to believe him, and vows to keep searching. That night, the pirates attack a treasure ship, and Armeria is disgusted by the blood and murder involved in the pirate trade. Although Skulls points out that the treasures were being sent to the king to finance war, Armeria insists that he cannot justify his actions, as they are for his own ends.

At a nearby port, however, she is surprised to see the townspeople welcome the pirates. While singing at a brothel, she discovers that Skulls rebuilt the town, does not rob the poor, and helps towns pillaged by pirates and peasants suffering under unjust landowners. When she confronts Skulls about this, he tells her that the stories are fake, and that she will not find Luce in the town. At that moment, the ship is attacked by the Marquis of Glenger, who has come seeking revenge for his ship being ravaged. When Skulls attempts to fight, the Marquis uses Armeria as a human shield, and despite her belief that Scars will not care if she is taken hostage, he offers his life in exchange for her safety. Armeria breaks free and Skulls calls her by her true name when he protects her from the Marquis' blade. While hiding in a storage room, Armeria realizes that Skulls IS Luce, as she never told anyone her real name. When she questions Doc, the ship's doctor, he reveals that Luce, having regretted being unable to help the peasants his uncle stole from, decided to become a pirate who would help the weak, eventually taking the name "Skulls" away from Doc. Despite her shock at Luce having become such an awful person, Armeria decides to stay with him and become a member of the crew.

After an attack by the navy, Luce decides that they need to find out if the navy are patrolling the area they are currently in. Armeria offers to find out in the next town, reasoning that as she is not a pirate, the townspeople will tell her, but Luce refuses. Angered by this, Armeria takes a boat and rows to the port, where she gets a job in a brothel patronized by Naval officers. She is accosted by a drunk, and saved by another officer, who turns out to be Luce in disguise. He takes her upstairs and demands to know how she planned to find the information they need. When she refuses to answer, telling him not to interfere, he threatens to "buy" her every night until she gives up. Furious with him, she storms out of the room, only to witness an argument between a navy officer and a member of the pirates about Skulls. When another officer suggests that Scars is in town, she yells out that he isn't, drawing the attention of a naval commander.

Armeria is imprisoned by the Navy. While she manages to escape her cell by faking a fainting fit and locking her jailer in, she runs into the commander and his men. Upon being seized and questioned, she claims that Skulls is far out at sea, only for him to come crashing through the window, having been informed of her capture. His crew, having disguised themselves as naval officers, keep the commander at bay while Luce and Armeria escape onto the pirate ship by swinging out of the window. The navy is unable to follow them as the pirates have destroyed the rudders of their ships. During a celebration that night, Armeria learns that Luce sold his treasured golden goddess statue for money to buy her at the brothel, and she realizes that he cares for her more than he is willing to let on.

Some time later, Armeria learns that Luce possesses a map leading to the legendary "Devil's Score", a piece of music so beautiful that it is said to truly be the music of Heaven. However, it is also said to be cursed, as when the composer performed it for a noble, the noble's entire family died of a mysterious illness and the paper wouldn't set alight when he tried to burn it, so it was hidden away on an island. Armeria tries to convince Luce to find the score so that she may sing it but he refuses, only changing his mind when she points out that he would be able to sell it for a lot of money.

On the island, Armeria and Luce search for the score in a cave, only to run into the same commander who captured Armeria previously. He has been sent to the island to find the score for an aristocrat, and uses Armeria as a hostage to get Luce to accompany him to where the treasure is. He wants Luce to fetch the treasure for him, as the chest is booby-trapped, but a cannon is fired above ground, causing the roof to cave in. A falling rock triggers a booby trap of poisoned arrows, and Luce is struck protecting Armeria. It is revealed that the commander is Luce's childhood friend, Reid. The boys were orphaned by pirates at a young age and vowed to avenge them, and Reid is disgusted to learn that Luce has become the pirate Skulls, claiming that Luce is pretending to be Robin Hood while committing crimes.

Luce collapses from the poison, and asks Armeria to sing the Devil's Score. The sound of her voice helps the crew find them. They take Luce back to the ship to be cured, and Reid lets Armeria take the Devil's Score.

Queenie Kelley (Oberon had been known earlier in life as "Queenie O'Brien" and "Queenie Thompson") is an extremely beautiful girl of Indian and Irish descent, fair enough to pass for white. Growing up in Calcutta, however, Queenie is made all too aware of her "chee-chee" (mixed) background by her enemies, specifically wealthy Prunella Rumsey.

One of Prunella's mother's lovers, however, is Queenie's uncle, Morgan Jones. When their affair is discovered by Sir Burton Rumsey, he fires Jones from his musician position at the cricket club. Queenie visits with Sir Burton to plead for her uncle's job back, but he does so under the condition Queenie sleeps with him. When she realizes that he has lied to her, she storms out of the mansion, but not before he falls over a balcony and falls to his death. Once at home, Queenie tells her mother and uncle what happened, Jones and Queenie depart for England. Lost in London, Queenie finds a career as a stripper. Later, she makes her way to Hollywood, where she is renamed Dawn Avalon. Avalon becomes one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

During this time, Queenie deals with complicated relationships while trying to conceal her true identity and avoid jail due to the ongoing investigation of Sir Rumsey's death.

The plot follows the story of a black ops soldier recruited for the military's Sentinel program, which involves an "intelligent" suit and multifunction rifle. The soldier must locate Landau, the traitorous scientist responsible for its creation, before the technology ends up in the wrong hands. Landau has formed a companionship with Dragomir Radovan, a powerful and dangerous Eastern European general. Their alliance has forced a further companionship between the player (the black ops soldier) and Karlo, who is the leader of a revolutionary movement.

Later in the game, once it is discovered that Landau is a traitor and plans on marketing his revolutionary creation in a maniacal technological installation, the player is captured and must escape. After the escape, the black ops soldier is ordered to execute Radulov from a distance and in the end of the game, battles against Landau, who wears an upgraded re-energizing suit (a newer model in comparison to that of the player). After taking out Landau, the game is completed, although Karlo dies in the battlefield, and the black ops soldier is left to lead his organization.

On Planet 51 , green extraterrestrials live peacefully in a society reminiscent of the United States during the 1950s, although the planet's and their nature provide notable differences from Earth and, notably, ignorance about astronomy leads to believing that the whole Universe extends for almost 500 miles.

One day, a mysterious spacecraft lands in the city of Glipforg. NASA astronaut Charles "Chuck" Baker emerges from it and is shocked to find the planet inhabited. Panicked, Chuck escapes to the town's planetarium, where he meets teenage alien Lem, who works there part-time. Chuck convinces Lem to help return him to his spacecraft before command module ''Odyssey'' in Planet 51's orbit departs for Earth in three days and leaves him stranded. Planet 51's army, led by the paranoid General Grawl, arrives to inspect and deduces that the astronaut is an alien invader bent on turning the planet's population into zombies, similar to how invaders are depicted in media, and a manhunt ensues.

Lem enlists the help of his best friend Skiff, an eccentric science fiction aficionado with conspiracy theories about the so-called "Base 9" (Planet 51's equivalent of Area 51), to hide Chuck away from the army. During his efforts to conceal Chuck, Lem inadvertently upsets his neighbor and crush Neera, who believes the alien is friendly, and is also fired from his job when his boss discovers Chuck. In Lem's room, Chuck reunites with a dog-like NASA probe called Rover, which freed itself from the army's base after tracking Chuck with a GPS and headed for the city and which befriends a small, domesticated Xenomorph. After the army searches Lem's home for traces of the alien, Lem and Skiff move Chuck to a comic book store Skiff works at, where the news station manages to capture Chuck acting out references to Earth's pop culture, which is misinterpreted as alien threats. After escaping the store from the invading army, Grawl has Chuck's spacecraft moved to a secret location. Chuck is later captured by Grawl's forces during a festive movie premiere in town, and is slated to have his brain removed by alien scientist Professor Kipple. When Lem defends Chuck, Kipple deems him a zombie minion. Resigned to his fate, Chuck pretends to release Lem from his "mind control" and is taken away with Rover to Base 9.

Lem gets his job back, but is determined to rescue Chuck. Joined by Skiff, Neera, her younger brother Eckle, and Rover, Lem tracks down Base 9's location in the desert to a gas station where Skiff inadvertently opens a gate to the underground base. They free Chuck from Kipple and find his spacecraft, but they are cornered by Grawl and his forces. Bent on eliminating the human, Grawl reveals he has the base rigged to explode. Lem attempts to reason with The General to not shot Chuck but inadvertently activates the countdown. Enraged, Grawl attempts to shoot Lem, but Eckle tosses a hook to him and ignites an explosive, causing him to be trapped under debris. Chuck rescues him before launching his spacecraft into Planet 51's orbit, escaping Base 9's destruction. After admiring Planet 51's view from space, Lem successfully asks Neera out on a date, while Grawl expresses his gratitude to Chuck for saving him. Chuck returns his friends home and allows Rover to stay behind with Skiff, who has bonded with the probe, and bids Lem and the rest of the town farewell before launching back into space, but the last seconds of the film reveal that the little Xenomorph pet befriended by Rover is on board.

In a mid-credits scene, Kipple climbs out of the underground base, but is taken back to his own lab for brain surgery by two of his own patients, whom he wrongly deemed to be mind controlled by Chuck earlier in the movie. Meanwhile, Chuck is stuck being licked by the alien pet as he comments that 'this is going to be a long trip'.

Mickey Mouse visits the seal exhibit at a zoo. He makes the seals perform tricks by feeding them fish. One young seal escapes from the exhibit to get more fish and ends up inside Mickey's basket. Mickey takes the basket home, where Pluto is begging for food. When Mickey puts the basket down, Pluto goes to investigate but is hit on the nose by the seal's flippers. Pluto tries to tell Mickey what happened, but Mickey can't understand him. While this is happening, the seal escapes from the basket and Pluto chases it, only to get his head stuck inside the basket. He blunders around and in the process, makes a mess of the kitchen, alerting Mickey. He angrily orders Pluto out of the house, despite Pluto's attempts to tell him what he was chasing.

When Mickey goes to the bathroom to take a bath, he doesn't notice the seal hop into the tank just before him. Completely unaware of what's around him, Mickey ends up scrubbing the seal's head with his brush instead of his back, which he intended to clean. Mickey eventually realizes that he's not scrubbing himself, but still can't see the seal behind him. The seal then begins scrubbing Mickey's head, which makes Mickey puzzled. Pluto later comes to the window and tries to tell Mickey again, but Mickey shuts the shade. When the seal takes his scrubbing brush, Mickey tries to get it back, only to grab the seal by mistake; he yells with fright upon seeing it. After jumping out of the tub, Mickey grabs a stool to nab the intruder, drains the water, and only then does he realize there is a seal in the tub.

Despite Mickey's orders to stay outside, an angry Pluto storms in and crashes into the tub, and then tries to attack the seal after Mickey introduces him to it. After Pluto becomes alarmed and angry when Mickey says he decides to keep it as a pet, Mickey changes his mind, understanding that Pluto won't like it and that having a wild animal for a pet is a bad idea, and eventually decides to take the seal back to the zoo, and Pluto smiles in reply (taking a liking to that idea) before bringing over Mickey's basket. After Mickey and Pluto drop it off, the seal shows the other seals the things it learned about bathtime from Mickey and Pluto. When Mickey comes home, he and Pluto find that all the seals have moved into their house and are using the bathroom and bathtub as their personal exhibit and pool, respectively, and using an ironing board as a diving board.

The young seal then waves goodbye from the shower, which concludes the cartoon.

The films begins at a ceremony in which anthropologist Étienne Sembadel is honouring his co-worker and longtime friend Octave Clapoteau. At the event, a young veterinarian named Esther Bouloire – with whom Sembadel had previously spoken at one of his lectures—approaches the two men and insists that they dine together.

After revealing that she thinks her brother-in-law murdered her sister Genevieve and burned the body, the two academics inform Esther that it's crazy to assume her sister's disappearance for 2 years means she's dead and they promptly check her into a mental health clinic. Upon her release, Sembadel and Clapoteau accompany the heavily medicated Esther as she recklessly drives to her veterinary practice, shoots up the office of her late father's law business, and shows them her house and the house of her “evil” cousin Muriel.

Esther explains that her father and her Uncle Leopold – Muriel's father – went into business together as the Bouloire Brothers and that both men and their wives died recently in mysterious car accidents. The business was taken over by the hunchbacked third brother, Jocelyn, whom Esther believes arranged the death of her sister at the hands of her brother-in-law.

At Esther's request, Sembadel and Clapoteau visit the brother-in-law but find that he's nothing more than an eccentric sports enthusiast. The two academics decide to take the initiative and visit Jocelyn Bouloire-Haussmann. Jocelyn assures them that his niece Genevieve just ran away and that the man mentioned by Homecourt—Munoz—is dead and not a lead worth pursuing. Less than two hours later, Clapoteau's recently arrived Roman lover, the Countess Renata Palozzi, is beaten up by thugs. The two academics, suspecting Jocelyn, angrily confront Esther but are scolded for visiting him without being asked.

The next morning, Jocelyn calls Sembadel to tell him that he's remembered Genevieve was fond of a Swiss lawyer named Bongrand. Sembadel and Clapoteau fly to Geneva and Mr Bongrand tells them that he doesn't know anyone called Genevieve but she might’ve been an acquaintance of his son, Paul Bongrand Jr., who died in a climbing accident in the Dolomites a fortnight ago. Soon after, the two academics are arrested by the police on suspicion of involvement in the death of Bongrand Jr., also known as Munoz.

Back in France, Homecourt comes looking for help from Muriel but finds Esther instead. He reveals to her that three killers are after him because someone told Jocelyn that he revealed the name Munoz to Sembadel and Clapoteau. He admits that he and many others were collectively responsible for Munoz's murder but that he doesn't know where Genevieve has gone. Esther kicks him out of the house and he is shot dead as soon as he passes the driveway gate.

Three days later, Jocelyn approaches Sembadel's wife and tells her that Esther and her husband are responsible for the death of the Viscount of Homecourt. Mrs Sembadel throws her husband out. Shortly after, the two academics are run off the road by a car. They decide to strike back at Jocelyn with an article in Left-Weekly detailing the 12 murders: the 6 by Homecourt in Europe, Esther's 2 aunts and 2 uncles, and Homecourt himself. Esther presents the journalists with documents found in her sister's safe that incriminate 41 people, including 3 ministers. Esther, feeling victorious, confronts Jocelyn. He is initially unshaken but his advisor warns him that the article might embarrass him by making him seem incapable of controlling his own niece.

The next day, Muriel is shot dead by 3 assassins while leaving the Bouloire-Haussmann offices. Esther and Leon (Muriel's husband) collect Sembadel and Clapoteau from their apartment and flee the city. Leon decides that he must return for his wife's funeral but he is shot on his way home. Sembadel, Clapoteau and Esther head to the Countess’ chateau but arrive to find that it has been burned down. They follow the now-homeless Countess to Rome where she somehow arranges for the safety of all four of them. Unfortunately, moments after receiving this guarantee of safety, Sembadel and Clapoteau are gunned down near the Vatican.

The film ends with the two academics happily dancing around in Heaven.

In 1956, Bud Corliss is an ambitious University student who is wooing fellow student Dorothy Kingship purely for her father's mining fortune. When he discovers that Dorothy is pregnant with his child, he realizes she is quite likely to be disinherited by her father, Leo Kingship. She does not care about this, saying she feels "like me" for the first time in her life, free of her father's control. Bud assures Dorothy that he will take care of her, hesitates when Dorothy insists on getting married, but then seemingly agrees to it.

After she experiences a fall on some bleachers, Bud spends the days leading up to their wedding formulating an elaborate plan to make it appear that she has committed suicide. He is stunned into near panic when this fails. On the day they are to be married, Bud purposely has Dorothy meet him at the Municipal Building during the lunch hour when the registry office is closed. He suggests they go to the roof for some air. There, he manipulates her into position and pushes her off the building; her death is considered a suicide because of a letter he had forged and mailed to her sister in anticipation of his original plan working.

After a couple of months, Dorothy's sister, Ellen, is dating Bud; he is trying once again to ingratiate himself with Leo Kingship. Ellen has no idea of Bud's previous relationship with Dorothy; she has, however, always had doubts about her sister's suicide. She has an idea that if she can find out who her sister's boyfriend was, he might be her killer. For help, Ellen contacts Gordon Gant, who tutored Dorothy. Shortly, Ellen believes she has identified the boyfriend, Dwight Powell. Bud learns of the investigation and manages to eliminate Powell from the equation. This, too, is taken to be a suicide.

Ellen is satisfied that Powell was the man who killed Dorothy. She and Bud become engaged. Gordon shows up during the engagement party to tell her that he has discovered that Powell could not have committed the crime. On his way out, he is introduced to Bud; while driving home, he stops at a phone booth to call his uncle, the Chief of Police, to reveal that he believes he had seen Bud with Dorothy at the University. Gordon returns to Ellen's and informs Leo Kingship that he is certain Bud was dating Dorothy and is likely her murderer. They give Ellen this news, which she rejects outright.

The next morning, the couple drive to the Kingship mine so Bud can see the family fortune being made. Meanwhile, Gordon's uncle confirms that Bud was Dorothy's boyfriend.

During casual conversation, Bud lets it slip both that he knows more about the smelter than he should, considering he supposedly has been only talking with Ellen about her family, and that – concurrent with Dorothy – he had frequently gone to concerts in the University town. He admits to Ellen that he knew her sister, and that he "even had a few dates with her". He tries to tell Ellen that he was being considerate of her emotions by keeping it a secret; they argue and Bud stalks to the edge of the open mine pit. Ellen goes after him, still hoping he is not a murderer. They continue to talk and he refers to Dorothy as "Dorrie", a name only he called her, it becomes obvious that he, indeed, is guilty. Her father and Gordon arrive and witness Bud struggling to throw Ellen into the pit; in a desperate attempt to kill her, Bud shoves her in front of an oncoming truck, but to his shock, the truck swerves and instead hits Bud, knocking him over the cliff to his death, while Ellen is safe.

Detective Craddock finds Thubway Tham working in a cigar store. Tham says he is reformed and wants to be an honest businessman. Craddock leaves him alone, but says he will be watching him.

Throughout the day Tham is swindled by several customers. A youth hands him a counterfeit bill and he loses to a man at dice. Since he cost the store $40, Tham decides to quit.

On the subway, Tham watches as the youth robs the man who beat him at dice. Craddock arrests him and the three men go to the police station. On the way, Tham robs Craddock of the wallet. Tham discovers only newspaper clippings within.

The man who beat him at dice later approaches Tham in a bar. He says that when Craddock discovered the wallet missing, he claimed that there was $100 within, so the detective offered him $50. Finding this humorous, Tham decides to drink with the man, who asks him to hold the money and give it to him as he asks for it. When they part, Tham discovers that all the money was counterfeit, so he must go back and pay all the debts.

Disgusted with himself, he returns to the subway and continues to pickpockets.

Tom Betancourt (Robert Powell), a student at Cambridge University, leaves after having watched his best friend commit suicide by slashing his wrists. On principle, Tom refused to interfere, having discussed the matter with his friend, who had insisted that the suicide was his choice and that he did not wish it to be prevented.

Tom then visits his friend's parents under an assumed name, and falls in love with the dead boy's sister (Gayle Hunnicutt). A complicated affair ensues.

Gregory Mcdonald's original novel takes place between Harvard University and Long Island. The film switches the location from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Cambridge, England.

That is the emotional story of "the murder of a child’s soul" by a Jesuit priest, a teacher at the private school for boys of Saint-François-Xavier in Vannes, Brittany, where Mirbeau spent four painful years as a pupil, before being expelled, at the age of fifteen, in suspicious circumstances.

At age eleven, Sébastien is sent to boarding school by his father, an ironmonger and terrible snob. The boy does not fit into the school and its aristocratic and wealthy students. He is ignored by nearly everyone until an abusive priest starts to befriend him. The innocent 13-year-old boy is seduced, then sexually abused, by Father de Kern. Sébastien is expelled along with his only friend Bolorec, the boys having been accused of indulging in inappropriate sexual acts. The charges have been trumped up by Father de Kern.

Sébastien's life is ruined and he is unable to hold down a job or make friends. He cannot even build a relationship with Marguerite, his childhood sweetheart. Aged twenty one, Sébastien is absurdly killed during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, his body being carried from the battlefield by Bolorec.

Troubled by a strange recurring dream and mourning the death of her father, 19-year-old Alice Kingsleigh attends a British garden party at the estate of Lord Ascot. There, she is confronted with an unwanted marriage proposal by Lord Ascot's son, Hamish, and the stifling expectations of the society in which she lives.

Unsure of how to proceed, she spots and follows a familiar rabbit wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch, due to her lack of sleep, and accidentally falls down a large rabbit hole under a tree, instead. She enters a tiny door by drinking from a bottle labeled 'Drink Me' (called Pishsalver), which shrinks her and emerges to a forest in a magical place called Underland where she is greeted by the White Rabbit, a Dormouse, a Dodo, Talking Flowers, and identical twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who all apparently know her.

Alice asserts that this is all a dream, but she learns that she is destined to slay the Jabberwocky and end the tyranny of the Red Queen, as foretold by Absolem the Caterpillar. The group is then ambushed by the ravenous Bandersnatch and a squadron of Red Queen's knights, led by the Knave of Hearts. All are captured; except Alice, who escapes; and the Dormouse, who takes one of the Bandersnatch's eyes.

The Knave informs the Red Queen that Alice threatens her reign, and he is ordered to find her immediately. Meanwhile, Alice is greeted by the Cheshire Cat who guides her to the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse's tea party. The Hatter explains that the Red Queen took over Underland, usurping her sister the White Queen; and that he joined the resistance after she destroyed his village and killed his family. When the red knights appear, the Hatter helps Alice to avoid capture by allowing himself to be seized instead. Later, Alice is found by the Knave's Bloodhound who is actually allied with the resistance. Alice insists on being taken to the Red Queen's castle to rescue the hatter. Alice eats a cake labeled 'Eat Me' (called Upelkuchen) and grows tall, infiltrating the castle as a courtier named "Um".

Alice learns that the vorpal sword, the only weapon capable of killing the Jabberwocky, is locked inside the Bandersnatch's den. The Knave attempts to seduce "Um", but she rebuffs him, causing the jealous Red Queen to demand for "Um"'s beheading. Alice obtains the sword and befriends the Bandersnatch by returning its eye. She then escapes on the back of the grateful Bandersnatch and delivers the sword to the White Queen; who gives Alice a potion that returns her normal size. The Cheshire Cat uses his shapeshifting powers to save the Mad Hatter from execution. The Hatter then incites rebellion amongst the Red Queen's subjects. The Red Queen attempts to quell the rebellion, but the Hatter and his group escape. Absolem finally gets Alice to remember that she has been to Underland when she was a little girl (calling it "Wonderland"), and she finally realizes that Underland is real. Absolem advises her to fight the Jabberwocky, just before completing his transformation into a pupa.

The Queens gather their armies on a chessboard-like battlefield and send Alice and the Jabberwocky to decide the battle in single combat. Alice fights the Jabberwocky, as the two armies battle. Alice finally defeats the Jabberwocky by beheading it. At Alice's victory, the red knights turn against their ruler. As punishment for their crimes, the White Queen banishes her sister and the Knave into exile together.

The White Queen gives Alice a vial of the Jabberwocky's purple blood whose power will bring her whatever she wishes. She decides to return to her own world after saying farewell to her friends. Alice then awakes and gets out of the rabbit hole, with messed up hair, a scratch on her arm, and her dress all torn and dirty from her fall. Back at the party, Alice refuses Hamish's proposal and impresses Lord Ascot with her idea of establishing oceanic trade routes to Hong Kong, inspiring him to take her as his apprentice. As Alice prepares to set off on a trading ship, a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder, which she recognizes as Absolem.

The story begins in Watergap which is the twelfth village along the Watercress river. Beginning with Glocken, the village bell ringer, the villagers begin to notice that their village is flooding. The flooding is unnatural even taking into account the recent heavy rains. The villagers soon realize that they must flee their village to escape being drowned by the flood.

During the evacuation a group of five villagers come together who will become Kendall's central heroes. First of these is Glocken, the town bell ringer who has become obsessed with adventure after reading the account of the battle against the mushrooms; Scumble, the town fish presser and sluice gate keeper; Crustabread the loner; Gam Lutie, a village elder who is overly concerned about her family treasure; and a minnipin woman name Silky.

These five minnipins travel down the flooded river to Slipper on the Water, the town in which the heroes of ''The Gammage Cup'' live, Glocken is excited that he will finally meet these heroes at last. When they arrive at Slipper on the Water, they are taken in by the villagers. During the beginning of their stay, he briefly meet each of the heroes but fails to recognize them for who they are. After being fed soup he is taken to the house of Mingy and Muggles to sleep.

The next morning, Glocken meets with his four other companions and the five heroes from ''The Gammage Cup''. They are tasked mistakenly given the task of finding out what is blocking the Watercress River and removing it. They also discuss an ancient relic called The Whisper of Glocken, a bell supposed to have magical powers. A stone with a map on it that Glocken has brought with him that has been passed through his family leads Walter the Earl to believe that The Whisper is hidden in Frostbite near where the blockage is. Glocken finally realizes the identity of the five heroes and is rather disappointed because they seem too ordinary and flawed.

The Old Heroes take The New Heroes to the knoll to begin their quest. Together they travel through the tunnel in the Sunset Mountains which was mined by the Mushrooms in ''The Gammage Cup''. They roll away the stones blocking the entrance and seeing that they can no longer assist the New Heroes, The Old Heroes leave them to their quest. The Old Heroes leave them with a supply of fishcakes, medicines (including the magic salve of the Mushrooms), a book of maxims created by Muggles, and a bag of gold coins. Crustabread is also given Mingy's sand colored cloak that he used to hide from the Mushrooms.

Finally left to their own devices, the New Heroes begin to prepare for the journey through this forbidding desert. While the others are busying themselves looking for water or examining the items that have been left behind for them by the Old Heroes, Scumble goes off to look for anything that might be edible in the desert. He attempts to dig up a root which has put forth a few stems however finding the ground to be "iron hard" (70) he goes off for a spade to dig it up with. When he comes back, however, he finds a hole with the root lying at the bottom of it. The others find him with the root and ask what happened. They dismiss his conjecture that an invisible animal dug the hole and tell him that he only got confused and went to a different place the second time. They use a sword to cut the root, which they call a "moon melon", find out that the inside smells strongly like rotting vegetation. Scumble, who is the only person willing to try it, finds it to be cooling and refreshing. The others are disgusted and refuse to eat the moon melon. While the others are busy, Scumble scrapes around the base of every moon melon plant between the hole and the tunnel. Before going to sleep, the New Heroes roll the boulder back across the entrance to the tunnel. The next morning, the five line up to push the boulder away from the entrance and push it and themselves out into space.

Silkie lands with a thud, slowly becomes aware of a whimpering noise, and sits up to find herself and the others in a deep pit. The whimpering is coming from a small fuzzy creature pinned under the boulder the New Heroes had pushed away from the entrance to the cave. Bigger creatures begin dropping into the pit, they imitate Silkie's efforts to push the boulder off the small creature's leg, and the injured creature is freed. Gam Lutie realizes that the fuzzy creatures dug the pit they are in and that Scumble is to blame. He wanted moon melons dug up and the Diggers, as the New Heroes begin calling them, dug the pit. All the New Heroes eat the melon that Scumble and the Diggers dig from the side of the pit. Scumble wishes there were a way to get someone out of the pit so that the Diggers could be shown how to fill in the pit, and Glocken comes up with the idea of a human pyramid against the side of the pit. Once out of the pit, Glocken shows the Diggers (who climbed out easily) what he wants them to do. An hour later, the other four and the baby Digger are able to walk out of the pit. Another hour later, the pit is completely filled in and the New Heroes have access to the shade of the tunnel.

Category:1965 American novels Category:American children's novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Children's fantasy novels Category:1965 fantasy novels Category:Sequel novels Category:1965 children's books

The story starts right where the first game ended, when the Nameless Traveller, who turns out to be a Prince in an unnamed country, rescued Ecstatica from the doomed town of Tirich. The Prince returns to his kingdom with Ecstatica, planning to get married, only to find out that his castle has been savagely pillaged and plundered and his people have been brutally massacred by demons, goblins, and human barbarians. Just as they arrive at the drawbridge, a winged demon flies by and kidnaps Ecstatica while the Prince is knocked unconscious by another winged demon, only to wake up and realize he has been put into the castle's pillory. However, the Prince is revitalized and set free by a mysterious female voice that urges him to defeat the evil Archmage to restore the balance of the world by restoring the 7 Elder sign and at the same time to rescue his beloved Ecstatica from the Archmage before she is used as a sacrifice.

Amanda Weber is a museum employee. Her nephew, Victorien, who feels that wild animals should not be kept in zoos, has been murdered, and she seeks to find out why and how. She knows that Victorien was witness to a mysterious government project where 50 tourists were killed by an unknown poison gas, and the bus they were travelling in was found at the bottom of a lake. Alex, a callous government assassin who is having marital problems with his wife Delphine, has orders to kill anyone who knows about the cover-up of that project, and Amanda soon becomes his target.

Henri Savin has managed a trucking company for his lover, Dominique Montlaur, for many years. Now he is planning to leave her for Julie Manet, the woman he has made pregnant, and Dominique is hysterical. She first threatens suicide, then shows up at a meeting of Henri and Julie. Dominique tries everything she can think of to break Henri and Julie apart, to no avail. Frustrated in her efforts, she jumps off a cliff and dies. Savin insists that he and Julie lie to the police about the encounter, although Dominique's death was a suicide and therefore they had no direct hand in it. Detective Waldeck investigates Dominique's death.

Similar to Cinderella, Joe Stooge is forced to work for his Aunt and two bum cousins (Moe and Larry). On a camping trip, Joe's accidental snapshot of a paper plate blown by a breeze, is mistaken for a picture of a UFO. However, Moe and Larry take the credit for the photo, and are paid a huge sum while Joe is reduced to the status of their servant. Moe and Larry are arrested when their UFO picture is revealed to be a fraud by the government. Angered, the Aunt banishes Joe for causing the arrests of both Moe and Larry. Joe isolates himself with a camping trip, only to meet two genuine and beautiful aliens from Planet Zircon who allow him to photograph them. Moe and Larry are released from jail briefly on probation to allow them to pay back the government for the fraudulent photo, when Joe arrived with the great news, in which the other stooges don't believe, and repeatedly strike Joe, until Joe manages to strike both stooges and the older woman unconsciously. Joe becomes a national hero, celebrating his photo achievement while riding with his new beautiful aliens in a ticker-tape parade; Moe and Larry are put in straitjackets and incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital.

Larry is a womanizer who is having an affair with Moe's wife, Belle (Mary Ainslee) while making eyes at Shemp's fiancée, Millie (Angela Stevens), as well. Moe, however, tracks down the conniving Larry at his pet shop, and gives him the works. Larry is able to think fast and convinces Moe he is innocent, which calms him down. Realizing he needs to cover his tracks, Larry looks for a "fall guy" in the form of Shemp. Larry then gets Shemp a job as an underwear salesman and the first place he goes is Moe's home.

While Shemp is modeling his ware for Belle, Larry calls both Millie and Moe and lies to them about Shemp's advances on Moe's wife. Both of them go storming over to Moe's, with Moe carrying a loaded gun. Looking to avoid being killed, Shemp flees up the chimney. After he fools Moe with a Santa Claus disguise, Shemp makes a quick getaway. Shemp then spies Larry coming. Now aware that Larry set him up, Shemp knocks Larry out and dresses him in the Santa outfit and sends him to Moe, Millie, and Moe's wife. Moe unmasks Larry to the surprise of them all that he tricked Moe and chases him out of the apartment. Moe shoots Larry in the buttocks times before accidentally shooting himself in the foot while celebrating.

Minnie Mouse is calling Mickey to remind him about their date, which he has totally forgotten about while sleeping on the couch. With the help of Pluto, Mickey gets dressed for the date, but loses the tickets to the show on his way out the door. Pluto takes the tickets to Mickey, after his tuxedo has been ruined by water from a passing car, and then Minnie arrives and tells him he has a cute costume for the "hard times" costume party.

The members of a gang, especially Sid, grow impatient as their incompetent leader, Fingers, botches the robbery of a fur store, the latest in a series of disasters. Fingers then comes up with the idea of robbing businessman William Gordon. Gordon bluffs them into believing the police are on their way. Fingers refuses to give up, plotting to kidnap Gordon's daughter. However, he errs yet again and ends up with Gordon's meek wife Lucy instead.

Thinking she will do just as well, Fingers demands £25,000 ransom for her safe return. To his surprise, Gordon gleefully refuses. The philanderer has been carrying on an affair with his secretary and would like nothing better than to be rid of his dowdy wife. Fingers desperately lowers his price over and over again, finally offering to give her back for a mere £200, but is turned down.

When Lucy learns of this, her love for her husband is extinguished. She decides to get revenge and soon takes charge of the gang (her wartime training in unarmed combat coming in handy). Knowing of Gordon's tax dispute with the Inland Revenue and his distrust of banks, she figures out where he has hidden much of his money. She leads the gangsters in stealing the cash and, for good measure, the furs and jewellery Gordon had lavished on his mistress, taking half of the proceeds for her share. On leaving Gordon's house through the bedroom window a lit cigarette is left, which unintentionally burns the house down. Gordon returns and, thinking his money is burning, repeatedly jumps into the burning building.

By coincidence, the next day, the newspapers report a gruesome murder, just like the one Fingers had threatened. Gordon jumps to the wrong conclusion, and Lucy makes him pay some more for his mistake. She has Sid and Fingers impersonate policemen investigating her disappearance. Fingers extorts most of the rest of Gordon's ready cash in exchange for letting the matter drop. When a real Scotland Yard inspector shows up soon after, Gordon loses his temper and raises suspicions of murder.

Desperate, he decides to flee the country. Fingers's ex-stripper girlfriend offers to provide a forged passport. He agrees to meet her later, after visiting his mother. Lucy guesses that he is going there to pick up a final stash of money. The gang shows up and finds him with a suitcase. When the police come to question Gordon further, Fingers takes the suitcase (containing £50,000) and leaves, Gordon being too afraid to raise a fuss. Then Lucy walks in on her now-penniless husband.

Fingers and his gang decide to keep all of this last windfall and not split it with Lucy, but as they drive away, the suitcase pops open unnoticed and the money is scattered on the road.

Anthony and his sister Sarah Walker go to an estate sale at Morley Manor after the death of old man Morley (Martin Morley) and buy a small mysterious box. When Anthony manages to get it open he finds five little monster figurines inside. After an incident with a monkey and a bath tub, they discover that the figurines can be brought back to life by just adding water. Once the monsters are revived they reveal themselves to be the owners of the house and kin to Mr. Morley. They are Gaspar, Melisandre, and Ludmilla Morley as well as Albert and the were-human Bob. Anthony and Sarah agree to help them get back to the house and to their appropriate size (and eventually shape). Once that's done Anthony and Sarah are about to leave when a mysterious friend from Gaspar's past appears, the Wentar. He reveals that Gaspar's twin brother did not in fact die, but was abducted by aliens and replaced by a clone when they were young. The characters just start to ask why when the Wentar hears someone coming and they escape through the starry door to a water planet where the Wentar thinks they will get some answers.

After a spell and deep dive they meet an agent of the deadly Flinduvians, Ug. Ug tells them that the Flinduvians kidnapped Martin Morley to study human life and gain an agent on earth. Their findings have led them to want to use earth's ghosts for batteries for some kind of deadly weapon. What this weapon is he can't or won't say. Once back at the starry door they decide to split into two groups, one who will go to the Land of the Dead to warn the dead, and the other to rescue Martin Morley. The Wentar, Ludmilla, and Albert decide to go to Flinduvia, the rest back to Earth. They say their goodbyes and then make their separate paths. Once back on Earth Anthony remembers that the new owner of Morley Manor was going to tear it down that morning. They then rush to change Gaspar and Melisandre back to their human forms, find them decent clothes, and find a lawyer to stall the Manor's destruction. Anthony and Sarah can't keep their eyes open and go to sleep at their house. The next day Anthony wakes and wonders if it was all a dream. Everything is normal. His Grandma is even cooking in the kitchen. There's a knock on the door and Grandma Walker goes to answer. She comes back with Gaspar and Melisandre- not a dream then. After a moment Grandma Walker recognizes Gaspar as the fiancée that disappeared fifty years ago. After explanations are given Grandma Walker insists on going with them to the land of the dead.

That night they all descend deep into the basement of Morley Manor and then go to the Land of the Dead by focusing on the recently deceased Grandpa Walker. Once there they eventually meet up with the Angel of the Land of the Dead, Ivanoma. This being confirms that it has felt souls being ripped from its care, and promises that it will warn the people that it can. With nothing more to do they leave the Land of the Dead, sent along all the faster by the angel. Unfortunately- or perhaps fortunately- the angel made a mistake and sends Grandpa Walker along with. Grandpa lands with Anthony and pleads with Anthony to not reveal his presence, and Anthony doesn't. The group ends up wandering upstairs where they find the group that had gone to Flinduvia for Martin. They have succeeded in grabbing Martin- who is still a child. The reunion is somewhat painful, especially for Martin who is eventually knocked out by the Wentar. Both groups share their information, but are left still with the question of how the Flinduvians intend to use the earth's dead. Suddenly a terrible voice offers to explain. Apparently Martin has betrayed them and helped Flinduvians follow them.

The Flinduvian reveals the plot to use earth's dead to power the bodies of dead Flinduvians, making them zombies that can pass in unlimited numbers through the starry door and can conquer any planet. The Flinduvian has a device that can sense ghosts and it picks up on Grandpa Walker. The Flinduvian points a collecting gun at Anthony, but instead of collecting Grandpa Walker he collects Anthony himself. Anthony's spirit is put inside a dead Flinduvian and after a while he realizes that he can, with effort, take control of the body. When he hears the Flinduvians threaten first his grandma and then his sister he is finally given the impetus he needs to take control of the body and fight back long enough that the Wentar can get help from the Coalition of Civilized Worlds. Afterwards Martin manages to help Anthony back into his own body and offers himself as a secret agent on Flinduvia- using the Flinduvian body Anthony had been put into. Grandpa Walker goes back to the Land of the Dead and everyone else goes home.

In the epilogue it is revealed that Gaspar won the legal battle to keep his home. He and Albert fix it up and he invites the Walkers to dinner every once in the while. Anthony also helps him with his experiments. Ludmilla and Melisandre live on the alien planet Zentarazna and occasionally visit. Anthony comes out of the adventure more mature with a healthy dose of respect and appreciation for life and family.

Alexa Daley is sailing on the Warwick Beacon with two of her closest companions, Roland Warvold, and Yipes. As the story progresses Roland decides to tell Alexa and Yipes of his and his brother, Thomas Warvold's, past. Going into detail of how they escaped from the House on the Hill, how they crossed the Lake of Fire, how they climbed to the top of the Wakefield House, and lastly how they came to be travelers by Land and by Sea. He tells them of Sir Alistair Wakefield and of the knowledge and years they spent him, and he also tells them of a very close friend called [Thorn], a mountain lion. As the story ends Roland finally tells Alexa and Yipes of the Five Stone Pillars and the Lost Children who live on them. Roland tells them that Abbadon is in the form of a sea monster and that he has followed them to the Five Stone Pillars to take control over them, thus ending the story and starting on ''Stargazer''.

The Stooges play janitors who work at a newspaper office, begging to be given a chance to become reporters. The managing editor (Charles C. Wilson) promises to think about it over dinner. The phone rings while he is out and Moe answers. The person on the other end is one of the boss's reporters, Smitty (Emil Sitka), who relays a scoop to Moe that some important documents have been stolen by foreign spies. Coincidentally, the spy with the microfilmed documents, Mr. Borscht (Gene Roth) lives next door to the Stooges. He and the boys wind up as stowaways on an ocean liner. Stranded on a freighter on the high seas, and sustained by eating salami, the boys eventually overtake Borscht, recover the microfilm, and are thrilled with their newspaper scoop.

Lionel Q. Devereaux and his alluring girlfriend, Brazilian singer Carmen Navarro, have been engaged for ten years. They are highly unsuccessful nightclub performers, due to Lionel's total lack of talent. They stay at an upscale hotel in New York. One day they get a twenty-four-hour notice to pay their bill, but needless to say they lack the funds to oblige. They hurriedly try to convince the big shot producer Steve Hunt to give Carmen a job at the Club Copacabana, and with the help of the easily convinced, gullible singer Andy Russell, posing as an agent, they achieve their goal to get her an audition.

When the producer asks Lionel and Russell whom else they represent, they invent out of thin air a veiled mysterious beauty from Paris and call her Fifi. They persuade Carmen to play the part of Fifi. The producer hires both ladies for the job, but Fifi is the new big sensation who gets mentioned in the press. Steve is very attracted to the girls, and to protect Carmen from the producer, Lionel tells him that he is engaged to be married to Carmen. Steve then turns to Fifi and asks her out instead. Desperate to solve the troublesome situation, Lionel asks Carmen to play Fifi and go on a date with the producer, veiled as usual. Another complication to add to the plot is that Anne, Steve's secretary, is in love with the producer, and not very keen on him going on a date with Fifi.

Andy tries to fix up Steve and Anne, to save both himself and Carmen from discovery. He gets Anne to sing her feelings towards Steve, in an attempt to make him more attracted to and aware of her. The plan doesn't work, as Steve shows no interest in Anne.

A Hollywood movie producer, Anatole Murphy, takes an interest in Fifi, and makes a generous offer to Steve, to take over Lionel's contract for the sum of $100,000, which he refuses. At the same time an agent named Liggett persuades Lionel to sell Fifi's contract to him for the lesser sum of $5,000. Murphy in turn pays $100,000 to Liggett.

But Liggett becomes suspicious, since he sees how the veiled Fifi get into a taxi, and then Carmen comes out of it. Anne reveals to Carmen that the mysterious Fifi has made it impossible for her to get Steve's attention. To help Anne out, Lionel and Carmen stage a fight between Carmen and Fifi in Carmen's dressing room. The fight ends with Fifi disappearing. Lionel reports back to Steve that Fifi has been found dead in the river, but he also expresses his feeling of joy over "killing" her. The conversation is overheard, and he is blamed and arrested for Fifi's murder. Lionel tries to explain to the police during the investigation that he only made Fifi up.

In the meantime, Steve confesses to Anne that he only expressed an interest in Fifi because of his business, and that he is in love with Anne. Carmen enters the scene, dressed as Fifi, but removes her veil in front of everybody, showing that Carmen and Fifi are one and the same. The film producer Murphy offers to sign a contract with Carmen, to use her as an actor in his productions, and also wants to buy the story for a film. Lionel becomes involved in the following film productions, and gets credit for almost everything, from casting to storyline. The picture opens with a song about the Club Copacabana.

Claidi is a teen girl who has been raised as a maid within an isolated palace-city called "the House." The main buildings are surrounded by a manmade jungle called "the Garden." All this is cut off from the outside world by the giant "Wall."

Claidi steals a journal and begins to record her unhappy existence in the House, writing to the reader as if her journal was a long set of letters. Amongst the things Claidi notes is the House's residents' fear of the world beyond the safety of their Wall, as they believe outside is a poisonous land known as "the Waste."

Life changes for Claidi when a stranger crashes his hot air balloon into the Garden. Captured and imprisoned, he is revealed to be a handsome young man named Nemian who is clearly of foreign royal blood. The House's eldest princess calls upon Claidi and tells the girl that she is no ordinary slave, but a child born from a slave father and royal mother. The elderly princess requests that Claidi help Nemian escape.

Happy to leave the House, Claidi and Nemian steal away into the Waste. They travel on foot until they hitch a ride on a caravan of chariots. They arrive in Chariot Town, a place inhabited by people who can speak the same language as sheep, and therefore communicate and live as equals with their four-legged friends. While Nemian and Claidi's stay is pleasant enough, it is ended by bandits who raid the town.

Claidi and Nemian escape into the Waste once more, but are chased and caught by the bandits. However, the leader of the frightening group allows our heroes to go on their way unharmed.

The Sheepers bring Claidi and Nemian to a village where the residents worship in a bird cult. In a religious ceremony, the locals offer up Claidi as a sacrifice. As Claidi is about to be thrown from a cliff, the bandits arrive and save both Claidi and Nemian from their murderous hosts.

Claidi and Nemein begin travelling with the bandits, who call themselves the Hulta. It is soon revealed that the Hulta aren't true bandits, but instead are a nomadic village of traders. They are led by a young man named Argul, who becomes a love interest to Claidi.

The Hulta arrive in a technologically advanced city called Peshamba. In the city Claidi begins to fall in love with Argul. Claidi, however, is afraid of being indecisive with love and decides to leave the Hulta. She continues travelling with Nemian.

Nemian and Claidi eventually arrive in his home city, a dark and dreary metropolis ruled by the dominating Wolf Tower. The city's ruling family has been led to believe Claidi is of royal blood, so she is trained to fill the important position of the "Wolf's Paw." The Wolf's Paw is a lawmaker who creates orders by methods of dice and books. Claidi soon figures out the whole process is non-sensical.

The Hulta arrive in the city to spirit Claidi away. Claidi is overjoyed to see Argul, as she is now positive she truly loves him. Argul reveals to Claidi that when they first met, after she and Nemean fled from Sheep Town, he gazed into a magical trinket and it showed him that Claidi was his one true love. As both are sure of their feelings, Argul and Claidi become engaged to be married. Before leaving the city, however, Claidi destroys the Wolf's Paw's tools, effectively ending that method of law making.

As Argul, Claidi, and the Hulta ride away from the city, fireworks begin to go off. The people of the city, Claidi realises, are celebrating the end of the repressive laws.

Claidi prepares for her wedding to Argul, and is living quite comfortably with the Hulta. While bathing with the other Hulta women, she is kidnapped by men from the City. After a long journey across a sea with two men, She arrives at a place called "The Rise". The palace is full of strange creatures and mechanical slaves; rooms move at their own will and create a maze. She is told that The prince Venarion Yllar Kaslem-Idoros has brought her there at what he thinks to be her own request. Venn was given a letter saying that her name 'Cladis', and is given to fits, rages, and inventing very convincing versions of her own life. After failing in an attempt to convince prince Venn that she is telling the truth, Venn makes the terrible decision to steal Claidi's book and read it. This enrages Claidi, but ultimately bonds the two characters and puts them on a level of trust. Venn tells Claidi everything she wants to know about the palace, and she learns a great deal about his mother Ustareth and her magic/science abilities. Ustareth left her son Venn when he was nine, and stopped speaking to him when he was two. After a while in the palace, Venn suggests the two take a journey to the library, to learn about Claidi's supposed mother, Twilight Star. When they finally arrive at the library, Venn gives Claidi Ustareth's diary. She discovers that Ustareth was sent to the Rise to create the jungle that is now spreading in the major cities. They also discover that the ring which Argul gave to Claidi has Ustareth's magical properties, and that Argul is Venn's brother. Venn creates a plan to get Claidi back to Argul and the Hulta, although Claidi starts to have feelings for Venn, she decides that she truly does love Argul and goes through with the plan to take Ustareth's ship, The Wolf Star, and search for the Hulta.

After weeks of flying in the Star-ship with her servant/companion Yinyay, Claidi finally reaches the Hulta. She rushes to greet them only to find that she has been tricked – after her kidnapping, the Wolf Tower had sent Nemian to the Hulta to tell them that Claidi had arranged the balloons herself. The lie is that she was in love with Nemian all along, and wrote love letters to him asking him to take her away from Argul and bring her to the City. Because Nemian brought a fake imitation of Claidi's diary containing long passages about how much she loves and misses Nemian, and also of her "plans", the Hulta are convinced that she is a cheat and liar. They receive her with disgust and anger, and inform her that after reading her diary Argul left the Hulta forever. Blurn is now leader.

Claidi is devastated, but vows to find Argul and tell him the truth. After being informed by Dagger, who visits her in secret, that Argul went north to a town called Panther's Halt, Claidi sets out in the Star-ship.

Before she reaches the town, the Star-ship abruptly loses its power. Yinyay shrinks down to a molecular size, leaving Claidi to travel the last distance to Panther's Halt herself. Here she sees Argul during an enormous ceremony, and rushes across town to meet him. He disappears for the night, and in the morning Claidi finds out that he has ridden off on his horse. She races to follow him on a graff. While riding she realises that she is being followed by a mysterious, seemingly friendly, slightly disconcerting man named Jelly whom she met at Panther's Halt.

The two of them finally stumble upon Argul camping in a field. Claidi finds that he is completely cold and indifferent with her, and refuses to hear what she has to say. He has a short confrontation with Jelly, who reveals that he is a Wolf Tower man, culminating in Argul knocking out Jelly. Then Argul tells Claidi that she may come with him to a town further north, where he will tell her when she can talk to him. He warns her to not to touch him, and the two set off.

Their trip is lonely, sad, and desperate for Claidi. Once they reach the snowy north, Claidi finally tells Argul the whole story. Much to her displeasure, he does not react at all, simply sits where he is without reacting whatsoever. Angrily Claidi leaves him to go back to her hotel, where her crying is interrupted by the entrance of a young, beautiful, powerful woman named Winter Raven. Claidi dislikes her at once, but agrees to go with her. She finds out that Winter is from the Raven Tower – a tower originally from the City that was destroyed and later rebuilt at a different location. Winter and her men have Jelly captive, for he is from the Wolf Tower which the Raven Tower despises.

During the journey Jelly tells Claidi that the Argul she had travelled with wasn't Argul at all; it was simply a mechanical doll made to look like Argul. The doll was a creation of the Raven Tower, who were apparently taught by Ustareth. Although the doll was able to move and communicate, in a complicated and emotional situation like when Claidi told her story it was unable to respond. The Raven Tower had set the whole thing up to bring Claidi to them. Claidi is made to stay with Winter although she wants to leave, and finds out that she is being taken to the Raven Tower to meet Winter's mother – Twilight Star.

The group reaches Chylomba, a town near the Raven Tower, where Claidi waits for days to meet with Twilight Star. One evening Jelly comes into her hotel room through her window, badly injured and bandaged, and gives her a letter from Ironel Novendot at the Wolf Tower. It begins by summing up the history of Ironel's family, and then informs her that, while the Wolf Tower had planned to have her kidnapped and imprisoned, Ironel had "saved" her by sending balloons of her own to take her to the Rise. Though their original plans were thwarted, the Wolf Tower still carried out the second half of their plan, tricking the Hulta into believing that Claidi was a traitor. Ironel also reveals to Claidi an even bigger surprise – upon reading her fake diary, Argul had not believed a word of it. He had such strong faith in her that he guessed the Wolf Tower's plan and left the Hulta to rescue her. He had allowed the Hulta to believe Nemian's lies to protect them from the plots of the Wolf Tower. Argul had travelled all the way to the City, where he had met Ironel and demanded the safe release of Claidi.

Jelly tells Claidi that Ironel and Argul sent him to deliver the letter to her. He leaves abruptly. The very next day Claidi is called to the Raven Tower by Twilight Star. Before she leaves, Heepo, an old servant of Venn's who was kidnapped from the Rise by lords of the Raven Tower, warns her that lords and ladies of the Raven Tower can fly using their special necklaces that cancel out gravity using magnets.

Claidi meets with Winter Raven and Twilight Star in a magnificent hall at the splendid and intimidating Raven Tower. Here Twilight Star tells her a terrible story that reveals the truth about Claidi's past: Twilight was the daughter of Jizania Tiger and Wasilwa, and grew up a lady at the House. She disliked all the rules and rituals of the place, and strove to rebel when she had the chance. As she grew up, she fell in love with her slave, Fengrey Raven. He was not just any slave; he was a Raven slave, meaning fallen royalty of the Raven Tower, whose many inhabitants were enslaved by the City and the House. Against the House's will, Twilight and Fengrey were married and had a baby. Because they violated some of the most important rules of the House – no having children without permission, no relationships between people of different rank – Twilight and Fengrey were banished to the Waste. But their unborn child was sentenced a harsh life of service in the House as a maid. To save her baby, Twilight and her mother Jizania devised a plan. When Twilight gave birth, a slave-woman did as well. Jizania took the slave's baby and forced her to lie and say it died. Twilight then made out the slave-baby as her own, allowed it to be taken from her, and then secretly brought her real child with her into the Waste.

Winter Raven is Twilight's daughter. Claidi is the unknown slave's child.

The revelation is confusing and angering for Claidi, although in the end she decides she does not care about her blood. Later Twilight tells Claidi the rest of the story. Apparently she and Ustareth were good friends in their youth when Twilight and Fengrey were rebuilding the Raven Tower in the north. The two friends both admired each other for their great feats and rebellions, and also of each other's brilliance. They created a dream-plan together to "breed" a sort of super-human, a woman of incredible powers and abilities. It was that Twilight's daughter, obviously possessive of even greater prowess of Twilight, should marry one of Ustareth's sons, Argul or Venarion, once she had grown up. Their child would be great by far than Ustareth, Twilight, Winter, Ironel, or Jizania – a Queen of the Wolves.

This is the reason why Winter disliked Claidi so: Claidi had won over not one but ''both'' of her intendeds. But Twilight assures her that everything will work out fine in the end – Claidi will marry Argul and Winter will marry Venarion, and one of their children will be the Wolf Queen. Claidi finds the notion of being bred and used revolting.

The story's climax occurs when Jelly bursts once again into Claidi's room, this time quickly catching her into an embrace. The moment this happens Claidi knows that Jelly is Argul. The two share a whispered conversation, saying "darling" periodically to fool any Raven Tower people who may be watching through hidden cameras. Argul tells Claidi that they must convince Twilight that they trust the Raven Tower, must lie and make it seem like they will do as they say. At last they break apart, and Argul explains to Claidi how he secretly left the City and disguised himself using chemicals and creations of Ustareth. He also subtly advises Claidi to keep her wedding ring on. Twilight, Winter, and Fengrey Raven soon join the scene, greeting Argul with admiration and pleasure, commending him on clever hoax. Fengrey Raven informs them that their wedding is very soon – Twilight wants to see her Dream-plan continued.

The wedding, as Claidi calls it, is an "over-marriage", with too much extravagance and pettiness and unkind notions. It takes place in a glass hall floating in the sky, which all the Raven Tower people reach by flying. Argul tells Claidi his plan under the cover of the cheering and chatter: he tells her to touch the Raven-god-icon at the altar and then to jump over the fountain. She does so, and both Argul and Claidi suddenly fly through the ceiling and escape. Argul explains that the Raven is what is used to "recharge" the Raven Tower's flight-inducing jewellery, and that when she touched it her wedding ring was recharged. He also tells Claidi that Ironel gave him a small sapphire attachment to his glass charm that allows him to fly as well.

After a day of rest Claidi flies back to the Raven Tower to confront Twilight briefly. The two argue, and Twilight attempts to murder Claidi. Claidi's ring deflects the blow, her power leading Twilight to believe that she is the Wolf Queen. On her way back to Argul, Claidi bumps into Winter Raven, who apologises for the tricks and games of her mother. Winter also tells Claidi that her mother had ordered her to plant another Tag into Claidi's diary. Although Winter was able to access the diary, she chose not to attach the Tag. Claidi advises Winter to use her flight necklace to fly to the Rise and meet Venarion, whom she believes will be powerless against falling in love with Winter.

The story closes with the return of Yinyay, who has turned herself into a full-fledged seven floor Tower. Argul and Claidi decide to fly south in Yinyay to marry in Peshamba beneath the CLOCK.

The book begins in Yinyay's Tower, in which Claidi and Argul are flying south towards Peshamba to have their wedding. They reach Peshamba and find that they cannot be married beneath the CLOCK, for this is a custom reserved for native Peshambans. They instead are married in a quick, cold ceremony by a doll. Argul makes up for the disappointment by getting horses for Claidi and himself, and a dog named Thu for them both. While wandering about one of Peshamba's parks, Claidi comes across the Mask Grove, a place filled with hidden statue-dolls with masks. While going back to her hotel she find that they are silently following her. She is frightened, but manages to make them stay put in the square.

Claidi and Argul soon decide to fly in Yinyay back to the House to try to rescue Claidi's old slave-maid friends, Daisy, Patoo and Dengwi, from a lifetime of brutal servitude. But upon entering the Garden, they find out that after Claidi's rescue of Nemian a great Revolution had taken place among the slaves and maids of the House. Led by Jizania Tiger and Dengwi, the servants had exiled all the royals to the Waste and established a new regime. Claidi is regarded as a heroine. That evening at a Lion Night celebration of the Revolution, Claidi finds out that Jade Leaf had been kept at the House and used as Jizania's servant. It is also revealed by Jizania Tiger to the entire House that Dengwi's father was Prince Lorio, a savage royal who had been exiled during the Revolution, and her mother was a slave. This revelation hurts Dengwi deeply, for she finds association with any of the royals as an insult. Dengwi decides to fly away with Argul and Claidi.

Back at the Human Tower, Yinyay tells Claidi and Argul that a flying letter had arrived for them. It turns out to be a message from Ironel Novendot, Argul's grandmother, beseeching them to come quickly to her private house near the City so that she may tell them some crucial news. The letter tells them to make sure to bring Dengwi, and Claidi and Argul decide to go. The three arrive at Ironel's house soon, only to find that she would spend the next days refusing to tell them the crucial news. After a few days Nemian and his wife Moon Silk arrive from the City, much to the distaste and astonishment of Argul and Claidi. Mere minutes after his arrival, Prince Venarion from the Rise, his supposed girlfriend Winter Raven, and Winter's "bodyguard" Ngarbo enter through a window, windswept, weatherbeaten, and exhausted. They too had received a flying letter, and had made a long, gruelling journey from the Rise to come.

Ironel now tells the eight of them the crucial information – her daughter Ustareth is in fact alive, living in a country she had built across the southern sea. Ironel herself had found out recently, and had received instructions from Ustareth to invite Venn, Argul, Winter, Claidi, Dengwi, and Ngarbo to come to her country in Yinyay and visit her. She tells them that once they reach Ustareth's country their Power jewels, including Claidi's ring, will stop working. Ustareth also provided them with a gem encoded scientifically with the route to her country that Yinyay could read and follow.

The six begin their long journey south. During this time Venn reveals to Claidi that he came to Ironel's house to confess that he was still in love with her. Despite the fact that he and Winter were meant to be a perfect match, he found her "ridiculous" and wanted to be with Claidi. Venn also develops a prickly and argumentative relationship with Dengwi. Halfway across the sea, Yinyay's tower stops functioning and comes down in the middle of the ocean. The six stragglers are rescued by an enormous ship-tower of Ustareth's make inhabited by Sharkians. Sharkians are shark-like mammals capable of speech and living above water. But the six friends are separated as soon as they are brought aboard, and are kept apart throughout the journey. Once they reach the shores Ustareth's continent, they are dropped off at different locations.

Claidi journeys towards the center of the country with her horse Mirreen and Thu. She passes through a mysterious door in a cliff, and finds that Ustareth's country is in an enormous place of many types of landscapes. She encounters many wonders, including marble trees that provide water and strange fruit, and forests that supply meals. At one point she is nearly drowned by a river that abruptly changes course, but her ring reactivates suddenly and carries herself, Thu, and Mirreen to the surface. After this episode, Claidi is able to make herself, her horse, and Thu fly. Halfway through her journey she finds out that three of the statues from the Mask Grove are following her, and that if she looks through their eyes she can see her companions. In this way she finds out that Venn and Dengwi are travelling together, apparently friends, as are Winter and Ngarbo. Argul, like herself, is travelling alone.

At last Claidi reaches a deep valley containing Ustareth's palace – a huge golden face on the side of a mountain. Ustareth greets her and explains many things, including why she faked her own death to the Hulta. She had contracted a rare, fatal, slow-acting disease. She believed that with her talents she could cure it, but the cure would be very complicated and almost worse than the disease itself. She knew that she could devise the cure better if she was not with the Hulta. In order avoid worrying the Hulta by allowing them to see her go through the pain of the cure, she took a special potion that made her fall into a deathlike sleep and had herself buried with a mechanical servant. Later, when she woke, her mechanical servant dug her a tunnel out of the grave. She was able to cure herself, but since the disease was long term and could kill her anytime, she did not return to the Hulta for fear of getting their hopes up only to die later. Claidi finds out that Jade Leaf is at Ustareth's palace, brought there through mystical scientific means.

Ustareth also tells Claidi that her ring had never activated. Many of strange occurrences during the trip had been because her very strong and potent power. Claidi had saved her companions when Yinyay had fallen into the ocean, had caused the mysterious door to appear, and had saved herself from drowning. She had caused the marble trees to move towards her, can fly at will, and had woken up the statues. It was her own power that made it possible for see her companions. Ustareth tells Claidi that Argul is the same in some ways, like being able to make the door appear and to fly. He arrives shortly later, and Claidi has Yinyay reactivated and sent to retrieve Winter, Ngarbo, Venn, and Dengwi. When they arrive, Dengwi tells Claidi something Jizania Tiger had told her – that they share the same mother and are half sisters. Claidi is also told by Ustareth that Jade Leaf is the half-sister of Winter Raven, for Fengrey Raven is their father. It is also revealed that Venn and Dengwi have fallen in love when they share a kiss.

The story ends with Argul and Claidi deciding to return to the Hulta, whom Claidi believes will make Argul their leader again. Ustareth also explains to Claidi the origins of her name. It comes from the roots "claaii" (wolf), "i" (on the), and "dii" (wing). So "Claidi" means "Wolf on the Wing" – Wolf Wing.

Jerry inhabits a world at war with itself and, armed only with an occasional "vibragun" appears to fight "against history" for the freedom of "randomness" against the straitlaced conventions exemplified by his brother Frank. In the end Jerry's quest, oblique as it is, is perhaps more artistic than political.

Catherine Cornelius and Una Persson (usually supporting characters in the Jerry Cornelius novels) grow bored of their current tranquil existence together as lovers and separate in search of adventure. Their stories are told in parallel from this point until the end, where they rejoin and the story begins again.

Catherine, generally portrayed in a saintly and/or martyred role moves through a series of relationships in which she is abused or dominated by her partner. She attempts at one point to get Jerry Cornelius (her brother and sometimes her lover) to beat her, but he is unable to satisfy her. Una Persson, who ordinarily fills Jerry's role as the eternal revolutionary when he is unwilling or unable to, embroils herself in a series of revolutionary wars - always on the losing side.

At the end, Una begins to despair of the situation in which she has found herself, and is rescued by Catherine who takes her back to the cottage they shared at the start of the novel to recuperate. This is an inversion of their roles throughout the book, as up until that point Una has been an active combatant and Catherine has been increasingly dominated.

At the onset of the film, Nissanka (Tony Ranasinghe) is engaged to marry Shiranee (Jeevarani Kurukulasuriya), a woman of the same social class. Nissanka decides to go to a club and asks Shiranee who politely declines. He thus goes alone and meets an old friend Chitra (Suwineetha Abeysekera). They rekindle their friendship and Nissanka offers a ride home. Chitra agrees and they set off only to accidentally hit and kill a pedestrian. The two now have a large secret as they flee the scene. Nissanka's family subsequently attempts to cover up the murder. Chitra is faced with a moral dilemma but doesn't give Nissanka up the police. She urges him to turn himself in. One man who had seen Nissanka's car when it hit the pedestrian, tells the police the numbers of the number plate. The police inquires into this and questions Nissanka too. Nissanka's father tells the police that his servant drew the car and the servant is also questioned by the police. One day the servant sees that the pedestrian had passed away so he runs away to his village The policemen go to his village and arrest him. Meanwhile, mounting tensions and conflicts exacerbate the already tense situation, making Nissanka's life unbearable. He finally decides to go to the police with Chitra and confess what he had done.

Inspired by an incident while making pancakes at breakfast, a grandfather tells a bedtime story, chronicling the lives of the citizens of an imaginary town called Chewandswallow, which is characterized by food raining from the sky. The grandchildren are named Henry and Kate (though the narrating girl —unnamed in this book— receives her name in the sequels).

As the story goes, Chewandswallow was mostly like any average small town but because the sky provided all the food, the town was devoid of food stores. Unlike typical weather, the weather over Chewandswallow always consisted of food, and came three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinnertime. The town also had a sanitation department; a food-cleaning service that would clean up food that was leftover. It also fed the fallen food to the dogs, cats, land wildlife and sealife, and also used other leftovers to enrich garden soil. For the residents of Chewandswallow, this was a much better arrangement.

Life was happy in the town of Chewandswallow; but suddenly, the weather took the townspeople in a turn for the worse. The weather began to create problems for the town with events such as a flood of spaghetti creating a tangle in a traffic intersection, Gorgonzola cheese raining down for a whole day, and a pea soup fog.

The food began to increase in size and started creating natural disasters, such as a hurricane of hard bread and rolls that damaged buildings and filled the seaside bay, after which it took the town weeks to clean up.

Another disaster was a colossal pancake and syrup storm, during which a gigantic pancake covered the whole school and was impossible to remove, leading the school to be permanently closed.

A few days later, there came a 15 inch drift of cream cheese and jelly sandwiches that gave everyone indigestion and next day brought a salt and pepper wind accompanied by a tomato tornado.

Before long, the Sanitation department service had to cease operation as they were unable to handle the continuous deluge of oversized, unappetizing food. With no way to stop the weather, the townspeople had no choice but to abandon Chewandswallow in order to survive. The people constructed boats out of stale bread cemented together sandwich-style with peanut butter, gathered all their belongings and set sail to find a new home. They eventually found a new town and used the extra bread to make new houses on the shore. The citizens, in their new town, got used to having real rain and snow as well as buying food at supermarkets instead of from the sky, while their children began school again. And they never returned to Chewandswallow, being too afraid.

Kate and Henry fall asleep shortly after their grandfather finishes his story. The book ends with the grandchildren waking up to a snowy day. While they sled down the hill, they imagine that the snow-covered hilltop with the sun rising is mashed potatoes with butter on the top.

American-born Israeli spy Helen Mason (Mariel Hemingway) is sent to Iraq to coerce an Iraqi pilot into hijacking a Soviet-made fighter jet for Israeli defense research. She seduces Munir Redfa (Ben Cross) in order to blackmail him. There are unexpected results when Helen finds herself falling in love with him, endangering the mission, while he is torn between his love for her and his loyalty to Iraq.

When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash (William Powell) goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap (Frank McHugh) and fashion designer Lynn Mason (Bette Davis) to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses. Lynn discovers that top designer Oscar Baroque (Reginald Owen) gets his inspiration from old costume books, and she begins to create designs the same way, signing each one with the name of an established designer.

Sherwood realizes Baroque's companion, the alleged Grand Duchess Alix (Verree Teasdale), is really Mabel McGuire, his old friend from Hoboken, New Jersey, and threatens to reveal her identity unless she convinces Baroque to design the costumes of a musical revue in which she will star. Baroque buys a supply of ostrich feathers from Sherwood's crony Joe Ward (Hugh Herbert) and starts a fashion rage.

Sherwood then opens Maison Elegance, a new Paris fashion house that's a great success until Baroque discovers Lynn is forging his sketches. He has him arrested, but Sherwood convinces the police to give him time to straighten out the situation. He crashes Baroque and Alix's wedding and promises to humiliate the designer by publicly revealing who his bride really is unless Baroque withdraws the charges. The designer agrees and purchases Maison Elegance from Sherwood, who assures Lynn he'll never get involved in another illegal activity if she returns to America with him.

The Evil Biocretes, rulers of the wealthiest parallel universe in the cosmos, have created a race of android slaves they call "OIDS". The Biocretes treat the gentle, peace-loving OIDS worse than space debris; they abuse them in every way imaginable. While the downtrodden OIDS toil in filthy, dangerous energy factories, the Biocretes live lives of gluttony and greed, savoring the fruits of the OIDS' labor. The OIDS are allowed to rust, denied of their basic need for oil. Often they are forced to work with one or two limbs completely rusted off. When the OIDS are finally fatigued to the point of collapse, the Biocretes tortuously melt them alive to build new OIDS. "They're just stupid heaps of metal", the Biocretes rationalize. "They have no hearts. We built the OIDS, so we have the right to treat them as we please".

The OIDS may not have hearts, but they do have souls, and no creature, whether biological or mechanical, should be treated the way the Biocretes treat the OIDS. Being a member of a compassionate race, you have been so moved and angered by the mistreatment of the OIDS, that you've vowed to devote your life to freeing them from the yoke of Biocrete slavery. You've joined the intergalactic organization, "SaveOIDS," and through your courage and passion have quickly risen through the ranks to V-Wing Pilot Commander. In their long history, the Biocretes have colonized planetoids in galaxies throughout the universe. The SaveOIDS Central Command has decided that each fleet should concentrate its efforts in a different galaxy. As Lead Commander, you are given first pick from the list of targeted galaxies. If you do well on this mission, your reward will be another, more demanding one. Good luck, Commander, and remember the battle cry: Free the OIDS!Oids Instruction Manual. FTL Games. FTL Games 1987

Geoffrey Sherwood, rejected by Valentine French in favor of wealthier suitor John Marland, watches her wedding from outside the church. Inebriated, he becomes increasingly louder, drawing the attention of two policemen as well as Miriam Brady, a shopgirl on her lunch hour, who takes Geoff to a cafe to spare him from arrest. There they encounter Hugh Brown and Tony Hewlitt, two of his society friends, who offer Miriam $100 to keep an eye on Geoffrey and make sure he stays out of trouble.

The following morning the couple discover that while under the influence of alcohol they were married by a justice of the peace. Miriam offers to give her new husband his freedom, but he decides to remain with her. They set up housekeeping in an apartment in a lower-class neighborhood, and while Geoff starts his own business, Miriam tries to improve herself with the assistance of Mrs. Martin, her landlady and a former showgirl.

With his bride helping him to stay sober, Geoff succeeds and the marriage remains solid until Valentine decides she wants him back. Miriam confronts the woman in a restaurant and their ensuing argument is reported in the newspaper. Miriam leaves Geoff who, realizing he truly loves her, tells Valentine they have no future together, finds his wife, and gives her a wedding band as a sign of his commitment to their marriage.

The story is about a friendship between a twelve-year-old boy called Pedrito and his pony Chucaro and it transpired in a big estancia in Argentina. The latter was once a wild horse on the pampa before he was captured by Pedrito and his gaucho friend Juan when it wandered to graze on a spot near their home. One day, one of the patrons of Pedrito's family purchased a horse and he demanded a gentle animal for his spoiled and cruel son and it was Chucaro he chose despite Pedrito's determination to keep him.

While the book is about the story of a boy meeting a horse and the adventures that came off of it, it is also a tale that describes the life of the loving people of the Argentine pampas and the place that they live in.

The federal government seeks to imprison gangsters due to their financial crimes, tax evasion and violations of Internal Revenue Service regulations. Newspaper reporter Bill Bradford is deputized as a treasury agent by the Internal Revenue Bureau and assigned to find enough evidence to charge gangster Alexander Carston (who has the same initials as Al Capone) with tax evasion.

He learns that Carston's ledgers are kept in a code known only to his secretary, Julie Gardner. When she witnesses the murder of a man who double-crossed her boss, Bill begs her to quit her job, but Julie realizes she knows too much for Carston to let her go.

District Attorney Roger Quinn pressures the murdered man's partner into testifying, but Carston learns of the plan and the witness is murdered and Carston is acquitted. Julie is arrested as a material witness and decodes the books, but is kidnapped by Carston's henchmen before she can testify. Bill tricks Carston into taking him where Julie is being held, and the police trail them. A shootout follows and Julie is rescued. Her testimony sends Carston to Alcatraz, and she accepts Bill's marriage proposal.

The Stooges live in "Ancient Erysipelas," (parody of Ancient Rome) where they run Ye Olde Pottery shop. The powerful Emperor Octopus Grabus (Vernon Dent) is in search for a new wife again, with his sights set on redheads. Lovely Diana (Marjorie Deanne), who has kindled Grabus' interest, hides out in the Stooges' shop. A palace guard catches onto the scheme and all are brought to Grabus which are condemned to be fed to the lions at the Colosseum. The boys help Diana escape, while Moe and Larry convince Curly to dress up as Octopus's prospective bride. These two then destroy the glasses of the nearly-blind Grabus, who cannot see past his nose. The Stooges make a rapid escape by jumping out a palace windows, but end getting caught, upside-down, on the spears of palace guards and were taken to the Colosseum to be finally fed to the lions as punishment.

Jack and Jenny Evans have been married for 27 years but have hit a rough patch in their marriage, as Jack has been having an affair with coworker Pamela. The two decide to split despite the protestations of their daughter and both hire lawyers to represent them. During a meeting the two lawyers, Steve Hollister and Tara Walker, find that they have a mutual attraction to one another. They also get a perverse sense of joy out of dragging out the divorce proceedings, especially as this means that they can bill for more hours. Jack and Jenny continue to argue, particularly as each wants to take custody of the family dog, Bounder.

Ultimately Steve and Tara's plot is uncovered by their superiors and foiled. Jack breaks up with Pamela and reunites with Jenny, much to their daughter's joy.

The Stooges are con men who are selling phony racing forms to everyone especially they sold one to a man which he said that the racing form was expired and the Stooges stole his money and threatens to call the cops. After evading the policeman they help a destitute mother and her daughter by utilizing the money from the child's piggy bank, and ultimately winning a horse race. Riding high on their win, the boys come across two swindlers who trick them into buying retired race horse, Seabasket (a play on Seabiscuit). Broke again, the Stooges start taking care of the old horse, with Curly managing to accidentally swallow a Vitamin Z pill meant for the horse. However, the error allows Curly to give birth to an Equidae, which they crown as another winning race horse.

The Stooges must get their future father-in-law (John Tyrrell) out of jail. Apparently, the father is a prison warden who has been overthrown and put behind bars by the local mafia. The Stooges manage to sneak into the prison, find the father-in-law to be, and start snapping as many incriminating photos of the mafia's party as possible. As a result, the real crooks are served justice, Williams is readmitted as warden and the Stooges marry their sweethearts.

The Stooges awake in the middle of the night to a crying baby left on their doorstep. A letter from the despondent mother (Julie Gibson) states that baby Jimmy (Joyce Gardner) has been abandoned. The Stooges react by taking the little guy in, feeding him, and trying their best to act fatherly.

Later, Larry finds a newspaper article stating a child kidnapping, and the Stooges believe that Jimmy is the child and the kidnappers left a phony note. When the mother and two motorcycle cops come to reclaim the baby, the Stooges evacuate their home quickly, with Jimmie in tow; unbeknownst to the Stooges Jimmy crawled into the back seat of their car. The police on their motorcycles track them down and the baby is returned to the parents who, the father being one of the cops, reconcile. The Stooges, meanwhile, make a conspicuous escape by skittering away hidden in large haystacks.

Three sailors and a woman (Rhonda Fleming) roam an island ruled by a deadly tyrant.

''Spook Louder'' is told in flashback by Professor J.O. Dunkfeather (Lew Kelly) in an interview with a newspaper reporter (Stanley Brown). The Professor relates to the reporter the story of Graves, the master spy (Ted Lorch). As the tale begins, we see the Three Stooges as traveling salesmen, trying their best to sell their "Miracle Reducing Machine", which essentially shakes and rattles off the pounds (as Curly demonstrates). Upon failing to sell any of their machines, they trudge onward, needing money to pay their rent. As luck would have it, the boys stumble upon the home of Graves, who assumes the Stooges are the new caretakers. Graves is on his way to Washington, D.C. to test his new death ray machine, and leaves his eerie, spooky mansion in the hands of the trio. Naturally, spies disguised in Halloween costumes show up once Graves departs. The Stooges are on edge the entire time, particularly because mysterious cream pies continuously come flying out of thin air thrown by a mysterious pie-throwing spirit (whoever he/she is). After being cornered by the spies, the Stooges detonate a bomb given to them by Graves before he departed; they end up subduing the thieves, thus assuring that Graves' secrets remain in good hands.

Back in the office, the reporter is desperate to know who was throwing the cream pies. Dunkfeather confesses that he was throwing the pies in the home of Graves; however, this claim is compromised when, out of nowhere, a pie flies into his face.

The Stooges are bellhops at Hotel Snazzy Plaza, and pound each other in order to get some face time with an attractive woman (Christine McIntyre, in her debut appearance with the team). Unfortunately, she has an evil mean-tempered husband (Vernon Dent) who happens to excel in knife throwing. The husband is also secretly importing Lupe the Wolf Man (Duke York) who goes berserk when he hears music. Later on, when Curly is cleaning their room, he snaps on the radio, and the wolf man goes on the rampage. The stooges head for the elevator back to the lobby which contains the Wolf Man inside who is playing with the elevator switch which cause to crash through the roof and sends the trio and the Wolf Man high into the sky.

Gilbert Kemp is dealer specializing in antique guns in London with a somewhat dubious background. He is approached by the mysterious Carlos MacGregor Garcia, a Nicaraguan and his employer, the very wealthy ex-professional tennis player Doña Margarita Umberto, who are traveling around Europe buying oil paintings to form a private collection which they allege will be donated to the Nicaraguan people. However, as many of the works are to be acquired from private collectors who do not wish the sale to be made public, and as many European governments would block the export of the historically valuable paintings, Kemp's services are needed in order to smuggle the paintings into Switzerland, from where they will be transported to Nicaragua in the diplomatic pouch.

It seems like a straightforward matter of art smuggling until Kemp is mugged on arrival in Zürich, and a priceless Cézanne is stolen. On his next commission in Amsterdam, he helps obtain an un-catalogued work of Vincent van Gogh, but the art expert certifying the painting is soon brutally murdered. Things heat up in Venice and culminate in Vienna where Kemp finally unravels the web of treachery and deceit that he has unwittingly stumbled into.

The film follows the saxophone player Clyde, who busks on the San Francisco Bay waterfront. One night, he meets Flowers, and teaches her to dance, but finds that "Blackjack" (Eddie Gribbon), the leader of a ruthless gang, is also in love with her. Despite the intense turf war between "Blackjack" and a rival gangster named Mike Luego (Walter Long), "Blackjack" wins the heart of Flowers and marries her, but without consummating the marriage. Clyde is eventually able to win "Blackjack" over however, and "Blackjack" sacrifices himself to protect Clyde and Flowers from Luego.

After geneticly modified foods turn citizens into zombies Manny,Jay,Ashley,Petar,and Paige all find themselves trapped in degrassi.Afte going to find help Jay is bitten by the principal(zombie).They all run to the gym and Ashley finds Jimmy(Zombie) on the floor helpless due to the fact that he uses a weelchair.Remarkably he gets up.Amazed Ashley just stands there and is bitten by Jimmy.Paige and Manny make it to the vent but Petar is dragged into a heard of zombies.Then after crawling through the vent Manny and Paige arive in Danny's "Babie making cental" as he calls it.He wants to repopulate the earth.He threatens them with a bomb made of chemicals.Sacifincing Manny Paige begins to make out with Danny and Manny runs out of the school as it explodes.She finds out outside that Petar is alive and the zombies will think you are one of them.She and Petar get on the bus and drive off.Petar holds his neck in pain then we see that he is a zombie.He bites her and it fades to black.
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Dana Lynn Yarboro's parents meet in Atlanta, Georgia when her father is buying an anniversary present for his wife. Her mother, a young divorcée named Gwen Yarboro, becomes James Witherspoon's mistress. Dana is born shortly before the birth of James's daughter Chaurisse, from his marriage to his wife Laverne. After Chaurisse's birth, Gwen pressures James to illegally marry her which he consents to though he does not leave Laverne.

Dana grows up with the knowledge that her father is married to another woman and has another daughter. Dana and her mother are kept secret, however the only individual from James's other life that is aware of the situation is his childhood friend and adopted brother, Raleigh. Dana is prevented from participating in certain jobs and going to certain schools in order to protect Chaurisse, however while attending a high school science competition she runs into Chaurisse who she notices is wearing the exact same fur jacket as her, both presents given to them by their father, James.

While still a teenager, Dana becomes involved with a young adult man, Marcus McCready, and while her father is displeased he does nothing to stop her as he knows McCready from his married life.

In her final year of high school Dana is introduced to her paternal grandmother, Bunny Witherspoon, as she is dying. Her grandmother bequeaths her her favourite brooch as a parting gift.

Bunny Chaurisse Witherspoon grows up the protected and beloved daughter of James Witherspoon and Laverne Witherspoon. Her parents met at the age of 14 when her mother lost her virginity to her father and subsequently became pregnant and was forced to marry James and leave school. Their son was a stillborn but Laverne remained with the Witherspoons. They managed to claw their way to being middle-class business owners with James and his brother Raleigh running a chauffeur business and Laverne running a beauty salon out of their garage.

While out shopping Chaurisse meets a young girl and saves both of them from being caught shoplifting. The girl is named Dana, and Chaurisse grows infatuated with her believing she is a "silver" girl who is beautiful and leads a charmed life. The two become friends with the shy Dana eventually meeting and befriending Laverne as well.

When the girls are seventeen they go to a party together but the tire on their car blows before they are able to make it. Chaurisse calls her father and Raleigh for help and is confused when Dana subsequently panics and calls her own mother before locking herself in a gas station bathroom. When James arrives, Chaurisse is shocked that he insists on leaving her friend behind. However, Gwen arrives before they can leave and is infuriated that James intended to leave their daughter alone. Gwen and Dana subsequently visit Laverne's beauty parlour where she presents her marriage certificate and also presents Bunny's brooch as proof that James is Dana's father. Laverne throws James out of their home and falls into a depression. However, after two weeks James and Laverne reconcile.

Some fifteen years later Dana has a daughter. Though, she does not marry her daughter's father he publicly claims his daughter as his own which Dana considers progress. She is visited by Chaurisse who asks Dana if James continued to see her and her mother after reconciling with Laverne. Dana reveals that after reuniting with Laverne she only saw James briefly at his vow renewal to Laverne. At this point, James told her she had finally achieved what she wanted: recognition of her paternity at the cost of her private relationship with him. She understands that nevertheless Laverne and Chaurisse have never been able to believe that they have won.

''The Moffats'' are a fatherless family in Cranbury, Connecticut, which Estes modeled after her hometown of West Haven. Mama is a dressmaker with four children: Sylvie, Joey, Janey and Rufus. The two youngest, ten-year-old Janey and five-year-old Rufus, are the focus of these stories. When the book opens, Janey watches as a strange man nails a For Sale sign on their house. They have lived there since shortly after her father died, and Janey cannot imagine living anywhere else. Mama tells the children not to worry about it until it sells.

Each chapter in the book tells of one simple adventure the children had. For instance, when the first day of school arrives and Rufus goes to kindergarten, he takes very seriously the instruction to watch over his young friend Hughie. When Hughie runs away from school and hides on a train, Rufus follows him, and a helpful engineer gets them back just in time for lunch. Another time, the children decide to rig up a ghost in their attic to scare the neighborhood bully Peter Frost. They use their Mama's dressmaker's form (called Madame-the-Bust), a pumpkin with real teeth and a scooter. When they take Peter Frost up to see it, they get a big scare themselves, and only later realize their cat Catherine had made the 'ghost' move.

When Rufus gets scarlet fever, the doctor puts a quarantine sign on their house. Mama, who can always find the good side of any situation, reminds the children that no one will try to buy the house while someone inside has scarlet fever. In the meantime, she entertains Rufus with stories of when she lived in New York City as a young girl. Eventually Rufus recovers and the scarlet fever quarantine sign comes down from the Moffats' house. Soon one family, the Murdocks, becomes interested in the yellow house, but they cannot make up their minds to buy it or not. The Moffats get very tired of having one or more of the Murdocks always coming by to pester the family with questions and inspections about their home. Once, Janey gets so annoyed that she pranks and scares away one of the Murdocks. Finally, the house does sell, and the Moffats move to a little house with a long front yard and a tiny backyard. The Moffats' new house turns out to have a girl Janey's age right next door. The girl, Nancy Stokes, is friendly and tells Jane Moffat that they might turn out to be best friends one day. In the end, "Estes celebrates variety as the source of pleasure and growth."Cech, John (editor), ''American Writers for Children, 1900-1960'', Gale Research, 1983, pg. 148;

In the marshes of Camargue, France, a herd of wild horses roam free. Their leader is a handsome white-haired stallion named White Mane (''Crin Blanc'' in French).

A group of ranchers capture the wild stallion and place him in a corral. Yet White Mane escapes. A boy named Folco (Alain Emery), who lives with his fisherman grandfather, watches intently as White Mane escapes, and he dreams of one day handling White Mane. The ranchers once again try to capture White Mane and fail. Folco asks the men if he can have the white horse. Yes, says one of the men, "but first you have to catch him, but your fish will grow wings before you can manage that."

Later Folco comes across White Mane in the marshes, and he tries to rope him. However, White Mane gallops and drags Folco in the water for quite a while. Folco refuses to let go of the rope and almost passes out. White Mane relents and the two become friends.

White Mane returns to his herd and another horse challenges him for dominance. White Mane loses the fight and returns to join the boy.

The ranchers return and try to spook White Mane by setting fire to the area he and his herd live in. Folco jumps on White Mane (for the first time) and rides him bareback across the marshes of Camargue, over the sparse dunes to the sea. The ranchers give chase and surround them, but they refuse to be caught. With Folco on his back, White Mane rides into the sea. The film ends as the narrator states that White Mane took Folco to an island where horses and children can be friends forever.

Cyril (Tony Ranasinghe) is dissatisfied with his introverted fiancée Sujatha (Punya Heendeniya). He starts a relationship with the more out-going Sarojini (Anula Karunatilleke) and gets her pregnant. Sujatha meanwhile is fascinated by a wandering Buddhist nun.

Due to the pregnancy, Cyril breaks off the engagement having no intention to marry Sarojini. Till the birth of the child he supports her and then leaves her for an older rich woman. Sarojini is distraught and contemplates suicide. Sujatha by this time is planning to become a nun.

Sujatha takes in Sarojini. By the conclusion, they have switched roles with Sarojini becoming a nun and Sujatha becoming infatuated with a young man.

Sena (Milton Jayawardena) is sent to a boarding school at a well-to-do city university by his family who mortgage everything they own to pay for his education. Their future well-being is thus in the hands of Sena. Sena however succumbs to the temptations of city life and fails in his venture.

The impoverished family takes on the titular scheme offered by the government to settle the North Central province.

Nirudaka (Joe Abeywickrema) is an ugly man who is only loved by his mother (Denawaka Hamine) and taunted by others. He falls in love with blind Sundari (Sriyani Amarasena) and they get married.

The mother then feels obliged to cure Sundari's blindness much to Nirudaka's chagrin and takes her to a hermit (Ravindra Randeniya) with healing powers. Nirudaka does not wish her to regain her sight, but against his underlying wish he and his mother accompany Sundari to get her healed with the aid of the hermit, who resides atop a mountain.

While passing through small-town Ohio during a cross-country lecture tour, notoriously acerbic New York radio personality Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) breaks his hip after slipping and falling on the icy steps of the house of the Stanleys (Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke), a prominent Ohio family with whom he's supposed to dine as a publicity stunt. He insists on recuperating in their home during the Christmas holidays. The overbearing, self-centered celebrity soon comes to dominate the lives of the residents and everyone else who enters the household. He encourages young adults Richard (Russell Arms) and June (Elisabeth Fraser) Stanley to pursue their dreams, much to the dismay of their conventional father Ernest.

Meanwhile, Whiteside's spinster assistant Maggie Cutler (Bette Davis) finds herself attracted to local newspaperman Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis). When Bert reads her his play, she is so impressed she asks Whiteside to show it to his contacts and then announces she will quit his employment and marry Bert. However, her boss is loth to lose such an efficient aide and does his best to sabotage the blossoming romance. He also exaggerates the effects of his injuries to be able to stay in the house. He suggests actress Lorraine Sheldon (Ann Sheridan) would be perfect for one of the leading roles, intending to have her steal Bert away from Maggie. Lorraine convinces Bert to spend time with her to fix up the play. When Maggie realizes Whiteside is behind the underhanded scheme, she quits. Somewhat chastened, Whiteside concocts a plan to get Lorraine out of the way, with the help of his friend Banjo (Jimmy Durante). They trap Lorraine in an Egyptian sarcophagus, and Banjo ships her off to Nova Scotia.

Finally fed up with his shenanigans, meddling, insults, and unbearable personality, Mr. Stanley swears out a warrant ordering Whiteside to leave in 15 minutes. However, with seconds to spare, Whiteside blackmails Mr. Stanley into dropping the warrant, and allowing his children to do as they please by threatening to reveal Stanley's sister Harriet's past as an infamous axe murderess. As Whiteside departs, he falls on the Stanleys' icy steps again and is carried back inside, much to Stanley's consternation.

Two men run across a beach at dawn with their hands are tied behind their backs. After several shots of a helicopter frantically searching the landscape, it becomes apparent that the two men are escapees of some kind. It is later revealed that their names are MacConnachie and Ansell. The two continue running across barren land, trying to escape the sight of the helicopter. MacConnachie continuously berates Ansell as they run, showing that he is the leader, more or less.

The duo eventually get away from the helicopter and find a goat herder. MacConnachie sneaks up and kills him hoping to find any useful supplies, but does not find anything. The action, however, greatly upsets Ansell. They continue on through harsh terrain, sometimes being found by the helicopter, but they manage to escape again.

One night, they come across a small town. They sneak through, and get into a house, where the only inhabitant is a lonely widow sitting in a chair next to the bed of her presumably deceased husband. She doesn't seem to notice they are there, but she does however seem to be guarding a basket of bread. The two ignore her and loot the house, finding many supplies and even a rifle. While Ansell prepares to leave, MacConnachie takes a piece of bread from the woman's basket, causing her to drop out of her trance and scream, causing them to flee as the townspeople are alarmed. At the town limits, Ansell tells MacConnachie that he wants to continue travelling with him, which is against MacConnachie's idea of splitting up. He eventually consents and the two continue on. Ansell reveals that he formerly worked at Fortnum & Mason, in London.

They come across the helicopter again in the mountains. They come up with a plan for Ansell to distract the helicopter while MacConnachie shoots its gas tank in order to destroy it. Ansell goes to distract it, but instead of shooting the gas tank, MacConnachie shoots the observer in the helicopter's passenger seat. Ansell protests, but MacConnachie tells him that he did it to show power over the helicopter and to avoid injuring Ansell in a possible explosion. They also find a sub machine gun with the observer's dead body.

After being pursued by ground troops through a field, they then come across a military compound where the helicopter goes to refuel. They try to sneak through, but are caught, and are forced to fight and escape, in the process shooting up the parked helicopter. They continue travelling across a mountain range afterwards where the ice is melting.

Eventually, they arrive at a snow peaked mountain, which seems to be what they were searching for the entire trip. At the top there is a military post, presumably at the border, and several soldiers who come out to greet them. Ansell is overjoyed and runs out to them, though MacConnachie hears a kind of noise from behind him, which is the helicopter. Before joining Ansell, he decides to stage a last stand battle between himself and the helicopter. Despite shooting it many times, the helicopter fires at MacConnachie, killing him. Ansell feels remorse, but eventually returns with the soldiers to the compound.

The plot is based on an actual homicide case from Victorian England. Blanche Fury (Valerie Hobson) is a beautiful and genteel woman, forced into menial domestic service after the death of her parents. After a succession of failed positions, she receives an invitation to become governess for Lavinia, granddaughter of her rich uncle Simon, whom she has never previously met due to an unspecified dispute between him and her father.

On arriving at the impressive country estate, she first encounters Philip Thorn (Stewart Granger), whom she mistakes for her cousin Laurence. In fact, he is the illegitimate and only son of the former owner of the estate, Adam Fury. Thorn tells her the legend of the founder of the Fury family, killed in battle, his body defended by the ghost of his pet Barbary ape. The ape of the Furies is said to protect the family and wreak vengeance on anyone who crosses them.

Desiring position and security she marries her weak and insipid cousin Laurence. Dissatisfied with the marriage, she and Thorn begin a love affair. They conceive a plan for him to murder her husband and uncle, leaving evidence to blame local gypsies, whom her uncle had antagonised in the past.

After the inquest Thorn becomes increasingly possessive, and she fears he will murder Lavinia, heir to the estate and final obstacle to his ambition, by encouraging the child to make a lethal jump with her pony. Blanche intervenes, and, fearing for the child's life, goes to the police, implicating Thorn in the murder. She confesses to their love in court, and he is executed for the double murder. As the day of his execution arrives, Lavinia goes out alone to try the jump she'd been denied, and is killed.

Months later, Blanche gives birth to a son, whom she names Philip Fury, after his father, Thorn. She dies, leaving her infant son, a true-blooded Fury, as sole heir to the estate. So the curse of the Furys is fulfilled.

As described in a film magazine, Joan (Glynne), a poor rector's daughter, marries a bounder and, after she discovers his true character, leaves him to make her way in London. She meets and falls in love with Sir Henry Bond (Powell), a wealthy collector of antique books, and marries him after reading of her husband's sudden death. Later it is discovered that her husband was not dead, and that he had the notice printed to throw creditors off his trail. Joan goes to his hotel room and a struggle ensues in which her husband falls dead from a heart attack, leaving her free for happiness with her book connoisseur.

As described in a film magazine, dour Scottish shepherd Lachlan Campbell (Crisp) is exceedingly harsh with his daughter Flora (Glynne). Flora and Lord Malcolm Hay (Fraser), the son of the Earl of Kinspindle (Robertshaw), marry secretly according to Scottish custom, and parental objection leads to misunderstandings followed by separation and misery. A logical resolution leads to a satisfactory ending.

The storyline is based on the folk tale Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What

Fedot, a strelets, serves at Tsar's court as the royal hunter. Tsar orders him to provide the game for his dinner with English embassinger. Fedot was unlucky: he got not a single bird. When he tried to shoot at least a dove, it turned into a beautiful maid, Marusya (Mary), which Fedot adopted as his wife. Marusia, possessing magical skills, saves her man from Tsar's punishment: she summons Tit Kuzmich and Frol Fomich (two magical servants being a sort of genie, who could and would perform anything Marusya orders), and they fill Tsar's table with food.

Tsar makes his diplomacy with the English noble, in hope to make him marry Tsar's daughter, the Princess, who is not beautiful enough to attract the suiters. Princess and her Nanny, an old angry woman, are not pleased and argue against the match with an ambassador, who seem greedy and stupid to them.

After the dinner, the General, leader of the secret police, arrives to the Tsar. He tells his senior about Fedot's new pretty wife, and Tsar begins to plan how to steal Marusya from Fedot. He orders General to find a task for Fedot which he would be impossible to complete and it would let Tsar to execute Fedot for incompetency.

General goes to the forest, where old witch Baba Yaga lives, and asks her advice. With her magic, Yaga finds the way. Tsar should order Fedot to bring him next day a magic carpet on which the whole Russia could be seen just like on a map. Tsar calls Fedot and orders him the carpet, Fedot feels low, but Marusia and her magic servants solve the problem and bring the carpet at morning.

Tsar, though trying to seem happy, is upset. He calls General again, threatening he will be punished if no plan will be given. General, also upset, goes back to Baba Yaga, who gives him another plan. Now Tsar orders Fedot to bring him next day a golden-horned deer, which is thought to not exist at all. But Marusia and her servants bring the deer as well.

Tsar forces General, General forces Yaga, and the final plan is prepared. The new task for Fedot is to find ''Something That Could Not Be in the World''. Even Tit Kuzmich and Frol Fomich are unable to find a thing so loosely described. Fedot sets up to journey for his goal, leaving his young wife at home. A few days later, Tsar, despite being continually mocked by the Nanny for this, arrives with the wedding gifts to Marusya. The young woman refuses to betray Fedot for old and vile Tsar, she turns into a dove and flies away.

Fedot is wandering the world in quest for ''Something That Could Not Be''. Shipwreck puts him on an uninhabited island. Its only master is a Voice, a bodyless yet powerful spirit, who is living a boring life: he can summon himself any good he wants, but the only thing he longs for is human company. Fedot, realizing he has found his goal, persuades the spirit to join him on his way back to the Russian Tsar.

Returning home, Fedot discovers his house devastated by Tsar, and Marusya tells him about Tsar's harassment. Fedot calls to the simple Russian people to help him avenge the injustice, and they rise up. The crowd storms into Tsar's palace. Tsar, General and Baba Yaga, caught in charge, each cowardly try to pass the buck to the two others. People sentence them to sail away in a bucket overseas. Then Fedot refuses a marriage offering from Princess, leaving her with his promise to find her another man, his twin. The tale ends up with the feast, supplied by Something-That-Could-Not-Be's magic.

Issue 1 "The Sword is Drawn"

The story starts with all of the members of New Excalibur celebrating their recent defeat of Albion. Captain Britain answers the door and is surprised that it is his sister, Psylocke, because he believed her dead after she defeated the Shadow King. She tells him that she was part of the Exiles for a while, and she introduces her teammate, Thunderbird, to Captain Britain. Thunderbird wanders through the party, and when Nocturne sees him she jumps on him and gives him a kiss while expressing her surprise that he's alive. (This is because the last time she saw him he was lying in a bed apparently brain dead while she was pregnant with his child.) Psylocke explains to Captain Britain what the Exiles do, and he is slightly offended because protecting the multiverse is something that he, as the leader of the Captain Britain Corps, is in charge of, and he was angry that someone else had taken over the job.

Most of the first issue focuses on James Jaspers. He is dealing with the fact that he had been killed by The Fury, a creature of his own creation, but somehow he is still alive. He is approached by Merlyn for a deal, but before the deal is explained their meeting is interrupted by three members of the Captain Britain Corps. Jasper is easily able to defend himself, and he turns two of the Captains into green creatures resembling The Fury. The third Captain is killed by one of the Fury-like creatures. After the battle is over Merlyn proposes an alliance between the two of them.

There is a one-page interlude where Roma tells Saturnyne to summon the Captain Britain Corps and prepare them for battle, because "The time has come to face the reality that '''all''' things—perhaps even all people—are ultimately finite. And must someday come to their end."

Back at the party Pete Wisdom gives Dazzler a brand new motorcycle, Thunderbird and Nocturne have a long conversation as they restart their relationship, and Captain Britain goes to answer another knock at the door where he is stabbed by Rouge-Mort, who is accompanied by multiple figures in black military gear.

Issue 2 "First Blood"

The second issue starts with Psylocke attacking Rouge-Mort in retaliation for attacking Captain Britain. Psylocke is able to hit Rouge-Mort numerous times but they do not seem to affect her, and Rouge-Mort is able to send Psylocke flying with a hard hit. Sage and Thunderbird join in and are able to easily defeat the henchmen in black while Nocturne gets all of the civilians out of the club. Nocturne tries to possess Rouge-Mort, but her armor prevents that from happening. However, Captain Britain is bleeding profusely because the stab wound is very close to his heart. Dazzler uses her power to create a blinding flash of light as a diversion so New Excalibur and the two Exiles can all be teleported to the Panoptichron.

In the Panoptichron Nocturne is reunited with her friends Morph and Blink, who are extremely happy to see her. Dazzler is reunited with Longshot, but his memory has been erased by Mojo so he does not remember that they are married. Because of this Dazzler contemplates jumping to her death but Mystiq talks her out of doing so. Sage is able to work with the computer of the Panoptichron to help save Captain Britain's life and bring him to a stable condition. Cat checks Roma's headquarters to see what is happening to the rest of the Captain Britain Corps, and the issue ends with the entire Corps attacking James Jasper and his two Fury-like monsters.

Issue 3 "When Falls a Dream"

Issue 3 starts a few moments before the last scene of issue 2; the Captain Britain Corps are preparing to fight and Roma tells them that they are fighting to protect all reality. It is revealed that James Jaspers is not necessarily who he appears to be, and that Merlyn was driven mad by his job of protecting the omniverse and now he is attacking to regain what he believes Roma unjustly stole from him. The Captain Britain Corps attacks and gives everything they have. They are making progress against Jaspers army of Furies, but the Furies are able to kill many of the Corps. Saturyne joins the fight and is able to severely hurt Jaspers, and as he is about to retaliate some of the Exiles join the fight. Blink, Sabretooth, Thunderbird, and Morph start a team attack that appears to be beating Jaspers. Meanwhile, Rouge-Mort attacks the bodyguards of Roma, but Dazzler appears to protect her.

Meanwhile, Captain Britain is struggling to stay alive, so Cat visits an alternate dimension set of X-Men (Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus) who are very gifted doctors. Psylocke and Sage fight with Pete Wisdom about letting Albion free so that he can help in the fight. Reluctantly Wisdom agrees.

Issue 4 "When Is Born the Nightmare"

Psylocke, Sage, and Wisdom go to Crossmore and come to an agreement with Albion that he will help them, but not try to escape afterwards. Dazzler fights Rouge-Mort and the Janissaries (this is the name for the soldiers in black with Rouge-Mort that is finally revealed) while Longshot leads Roma to a secure area. Along the way they are ambushed by more Janissaries and Sage joins the fight to help Longshot defeat them. Unfortunately Roma is stabbed during the fight. Also Longshot's feelings for Dazzler start to return, but he does not understand why since his memories are still not there. Longshot helps Dazzler defeat Rouge-Mort, but they are both knocked out by Merlyn.

The fight against Jaspers is no longer going well, and Jaspers is winning. He is starting to try to turn Morph into a Fury, but Albion arrives just in time to break that up. Albion is able to land some heavy blows, but it seems to have no effect. Then Jaspers slowly turns into the original Fury and kills almost all of the few remaining members of the Captain Britain Corps. The final page of the issue shows Captain Britain ready to join the fight.

Issue 5 "Dawn of a New Day?"

Captain Britain battles the Fury, shaking Roma's Starlight Citadel apart and trapping Albion and the Exiles. Roma, on the verge of dying, transfers her knowledge into Sage's brain, nearly driving her mad. Merlyn finds Roma and kills her. Psylocke then fights Merlyn and easily gains the upper hand. Albion aids Captain Britain in battling the Fury. Blink teleports a full quill of javelins into the Fury, disassembling it. However, a small piece of the Fury enters Merlyn through a wound given by Longshot. Everyone corners Merlyn, who retreats. Longshot leaves the Exiles to live with Dazzler. Saturnyne chooses Albion to lead the Captain Britain corps, since he is a tougher warrior. She dismisses Captain Britain, telling him to stay with ''his'' Earth, saying it is just too dangerous. Psylocke finds Sage, who is barely coherent and sane after the data transfer. She ends up leaving with the Exiles, telling Psylocke that the wrong people could get their hands on the data if she went back to Earth. Psylocke tells Captain Britain that she is staying with the Exiles, saying that Xavier has too many X-Men that he does not know what to do with all of them and he will not need her. Nocturne also returns to the Exiles to be with Thunderbird. The elderly couple at the Panoptichron departs, telling Psylocke that she and her crew have to guard the multiverse now. They vanish, and everyone watches as Roma is about to be buried.

Mayor Tommy Carcetti's plan to rejuvenate the Baltimore Police Department has been halted by funding cuts necessitated by the city's education deficit. Carcetti and Council President Nerese Campbell meet with a Republican U.S. Attorney who promises to lend a dozen FBI agents to the BPD in exchange for the city allowing the investigation into the corrupt State Senator Clay Davis to be made a federal case. Carcetti fears that the U.S. Attorney will use the case to discredit the Democrats, while Campbell sees State's Attorney Rupert Bond's case against Davis as a means of eventually running for mayor. Carcetti's cuts cause the Major Crimes Unit (MCU) to shut down, effectively ending the investigation into the vacant murders. Detectives Lester Freamon and Leander Sydnor take over the Davis investigation.

Colonel Cedric Daniels is outraged that City Hall is prioritizing Davis over 22 murders. Detective Jimmy McNulty, having already fallen back into his old habits of alcoholism and infidelity while working in the MCU, is despondent upon his return to Homicide. In the Western District, Sergeant Ellis Carver struggles to keep up morale following pay cuts. Herc is now working as an investigator for defense attorney Maurice Levy. Marlo Stanfield intimidates other drug dealers into buying his product and causes unrest in the New Day Co-Op. He gets Chris Partlow to find Sergei Malatov as a connection to the Co-Ops' suppliers. Partlow visits the courthouse, where he unwittingly approaches Daniels, Bond, and Rhonda Pearlman to ask for directions. Michael Lee is acting as an enforcer under Partlow, while his friend and cohabitant Duquan "Dukie" Weems runs their drug dealing crew. Dukie has not gained the respect of the crew, and Michael suggests paying him for looking after his younger brother Bug instead.

''The Baltimore Sun'' also faces budget cuts, but editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes remains principled and efficient. The ''Sun'' breaks a story about Campbell's relocation of drug dealer Ricardo "Fat-Face Rick" Hendrix's strip club out of a redeveloping neighborhood at a considerable cost to the city budget, linking the plan to campaign contributions from Hendrix and Campbell's associates. Ambitious reporter Scott Templeton remains dissatisfied while his colleague Alma Gutierrez, who got a choice quote from Hendrix for the story, is happy with her work. Bubbles lives in his sister's basement and no longer uses drugs, but leaves each evening that his sister is assigned to night shift, as she does not trust him enough to leave him alone in her house. He works as a rush hour distributor for the ''Sun'' to commuters. He sells a copy to Campbell, who is outraged by the Hendrix story.

EVE VIII is a military android created to look and sound exactly like her creator, Dr. Eve Simmons. When the robot is damaged during a bank robbery, it accesses memories it was programmed with by her creator. The memories used though are dark and tragic ones.

The robot is also programmed as a killing machine if anyone tries to stop her mission. Colonel Jim McQuade is tasked with eliminating the unstoppable machine. With the help of Dr. Simmons, he tries to outthink the intelligent and emotional robotic doppelgänger.

Agnes Thornton, a housekeeper for the reclusive Mrs. Elliott and her sculptor son, Jeffrey, is stabbed to death at the Elliotts' mansion. Her father, George, files a missing person report on his daughter after she fails to contact him, unaware she is dead.

Meanwhile, college student and aspiring artist Peggy Johns visits the Elliott mansion after finding a job advertisement on campus. Jeffrey hires Peggy for the job, though his mother is ambivalent, and suggests several times to Peggy that she quit. In the house, Peggy notices a picture of a young blonde woman, whom she later learns is Jeffrey's sister, Jennifer. When Peggy inquires about her, Mrs. Elliott claims Jennifer is living abroad in Europe.

Peggy grow somewhat suspicious when George Thorton arrives at the mansion searching for Agnes. Unbeknownst to Peggy, George is murdered by an unseen assailant while attempting to leave, and she later notices his car in the garage. As Peggy and Jeffrey begin to form an artistic—and later, romantic—bond, Peggy learns that Jennifer is not actually in Europe. Jeffrey reveals that Jennifer is psychotic, and lives in a secret apartment located above the home's garage, where she is cared for by himself and his mother. The empathetic Peggy wishes to meet Jennifer, but Jeffrey forbids it.

Later, Peggy informs Mrs. Elliott that she knows the truth about Jennifer, and that she wants to befriend her, to which Mrs. Elliott responds with laughter. Mrs. Elliott again urges Peggy to quit the job, and the two get into an argument, ending in Mrs. Elliott firing her. Later that night, Peggy goes to meet Jeffrey in his artist's loft, and is met by a blonde woman in a flowing white gown, whom she believes to be Jennifer. Jennifer attempts to stab Peggy to death before chasing her through the house.

Peggy eventually finds Jeffrey, who consoles her. When Peggy asks about George's car, Jeffrey tells her he hid it in the garage to protect Jennifer, whom he believes may have hurt him. Jeffrey visits to Jennifer's apartment while Peggy and Mrs. Elliot watch from the driveway. After an audible scuffle, Jeffrey emerges from the apartment, covered in blood, rambling about how Jennifer fell onto a knife and was killed during the confrontation. Peggy attempts to phone police, but Mrs. Elliott cautions her from doing so. When Peggy subsequently enters Jennifer's apartment, she finds it empty.

In the artist's loft, Peggy finds Jeffrey in a dissociated state, wearing a gown and makeup, holding a blond wig. When he approaches Peggy with a knife, Mrs. Elliott appears and shoots him to death. Mrs. Elliott proceeds to explain to Peggy that Jeffrey was obsessed with his sister, and that he murdered her years prior before encasing her corpse in one of his grandiose sculptures. After, Jeffrey would slip in and out of the alternate personality of his sister. Mrs. Elliott laments the situation, but tells Peggy that, as an old and lonely woman, she wanted to avoid her son being institutionalized, which would leave her alone. Peggy calmly picks up the phone and calls the police.

Trafford Sewell, the novel's protagonist, sets off for work on a rare "Fizzy Coff", a rare day that he must be physically present in his office as he is predominately a remote worker, and, in the short distance he has to travel, he is confronted by the numerous maudlin "tributes" to dead "kiddies", massive overcrowding, and oppressive heat that are typical of his world. His "Confessor", Bailey, confronts him about his lateness in posting an explicit video of Caitlin Happymeal (Trafford's daughter) being born on the "WorldTube". Trafford's given excuse is forgetfulness, rather than the illegal desire for privacy that is his true reason.

A "Fizzy Coff" colleague, Cassius, begins to take an interest in Trafford and invites him to lunch at an "old-fashioned" falafel restaurant. There he tells Trafford that he is a "Vaccinator" who belongs to the "Humanist" group. This group believes in reason and science, opposing the Temple's message of blind faith. Having already lost an earlier child to a "plague" as all epidemics are called, Trafford tries to find a way to get Caitlin Happymeal vaccinated. Trafford's wife, Chantorria, is a devout Temple member and is against the idea. Trafford ignores her wishes and secretly gives Caitlin a MMR vaccine against measles, mumps, and tetanus.

Vaccination is banned under the "Wembley Laws" as interference in "God's will" and as a result, half of all children born die of preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus.

When a measles epidemic comes to London, thousands of children die, including all the children in the Trafford's apartment building, but Caitlin Happymeal survives. Chantorria is aware of the fact that Caitlin Happymeal has been vaccinated, but rather than accepting this cause and effect, she sees Caitlin Happymeal's survival as God's will. The Sewells become stars in their parish and Chantorria becomes the centre of attention, which she relishes. She gradually becomes convinced that she is one of God's chosen few and begins an affair with Confessor Bailey.

During this time, Trafford has fallen in love with Sandra Dee, another "Fizzy Coff" colleague. He has been "Goog'ing" her and discovers that the videos that she "tubes" are not of her and her blog entries have been lifted wholesale from other people's blogs. This fascinates Trafford as he sees a kindred spirit in her: someone else who values privacy in a world where everything is made public. Trafford introduces Sandra Dee to the books that Cassius has lent him from the Humanist group's library. The relationship between the pair develops.

The Sewells' world is then shattered by the death of Caitlin Happymeal due to a cholera epidemic, a disease against which she was not vaccinated. Chantorria becomes angry, telling Trafford that Caitlin's death is a punishment from God for his heresy in having her vaccinated at all. They are rejected by their community and arrested by the Temple and are tortured into implicating others. Chantorria accepts the torture as her "just punishment". As Trafford finally breaks and implicates Cassius, the Inquisitor tells him that they already knew everything, the torture was simply to test his endurance.

In his cell, Trafford is visited by Sandra Dee, who turns out to be an undercover police officer, and the reason that the Temple knows all about the Humanists. She tries to recruit Trafford. He refuses and he and Chantorria are taken to the stake to be burned as heretics.

On his personal PC, Trafford has set up an email bomb (containing a précis of the Theory of Evolution) which he tricks Sandra Dee into releasing under the pretense that it contains a love-letter from him to her. When being tied to the stake, Trafford notices a girl waving an Ev Love ("evolve" backwards) banner, showing that she received the e-mail. He goes to his death in hope of a better world, reasoning that a society which promotes ignorance over knowledge and values mediocrity will inevitably die out and "evolve" into one that values knowledge and excellence.

Young Kate isn't at all what Jancsi and his family are expecting. She turns out to be an out-of-control little girl, sent by her father to live with her Uncle's family in the country. Kate's Uncle Marton is the "Good Master", a kind and respected man in the community. Her father has spoiled Kate since her mother died, and now he hopes his brother will be able to do something with her.

At first, Jancsi is repelled by her unpredictable and disrespectful behavior. But he and Kate share many adventures on his father's ranch in Hungary—riding run-away horses, going to a Country Fair, celebrating Easter and Christmas in traditional ways. Eventually, he learns to appreciate her spirit, and Kate learns to love and respect the people she has met. When her father arrives at the end of the book, he hardly recognizes his polite, self-controlled daughter, and she persuades him to move to the country to teach.

''Family Reunion'' follows Elizabeth Winfield, a New England teacher recently retired after a fifty-year career. She uses an unlimited bus ticket received as a gift to visit the distant members of her long-estranged family. During her absence, her small hometown, which bears her family's name, falls prey to dishonest relatives colluding with corrupt shopping mall developers. She returns in an effort to halt construction on the project and, armed with the moral integrity she has instilled in her students for the past five decades, she manages to resolve the situation in time for the annual Founder's Day festivities.

Porky Pig is the supervisor of the Flockheed Eggcraft Factory, where dozens of hens lay eggs for the war effort (in this case, World War II). The hens suddenly get distracted from their egg laying when a handsome rooster (who resembles and sings like Frank Sinatra) is heard singing outside. Frankie's renditions of "It Can't Be Wrong" by Dick Haymes and "As Time Goes By" (from ''Casablanca'', 1942) causes all the hens to swoon.

When egg production comes to a halt, Porky rushes to investigate and finds all the roosts empty; all the hens have gone to listen to Frankie. Soon, he is auditioning for a crooner of his own to start production up again; showing up are rooster caricatures of Vaughn Monroe ("Shortnin' Bread"), Al Jolson ("September in the Rain"), Jimmy Durante ("Lullaby of Broadway") and Cab Calloway ("Blues in the Night"), none of whom apparently work out.

Porky is on the point of despair when a Bing Crosby rooster (who introduces himself as "The Old Groaner") shows up and provokes a competition with Frankie ("When My Dream Boat Comes Home", "I'll Pray for You", "Trade Winds", "Always in My Heart", "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby").[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037339/soundtrack IMDb soundtrack listing] Between the two of them, the overexcited hens' egg production shoots to a level beyond what Porky can handle, including a just-hatched hen chick laying an egg many times her own size.

Surveying literal hills and mountains of eggs all over his farm, Porky is impressed and asks the two roosters, "How did you ever m-m-make 'em lay all those eggs." The roosters demonstrate their technique by crooning at Porky, who lays a mountain of eggs himself as a result.

Part One: Chapters 1–14

The novel begins with Ben Tyson finding and reading excerpts from ''Hue: Death of a City,'' a recently published book by Andrew Picard about the Battle of Hue during the Vietnam War. The book highlights an incident similar to MyLai and is based on information provided to Picard from two men in Tyson's platoon and from a nun who escaped the incident. It names Tyson as the leader of the platoon, which is shot at as it approaches a hospital, suffering one fatality and two injuries. According to the book, a doctor at the hospital refuses to help one of the American soldiers because his condition is too bad; after an American soldier shoots the doctor and others are killed in the hospital, chaos ensues and, according to Picard, the platoon decides to kill all the witness (everyone in the hospital). The book never mentions names except Tyson's, stating that he was the platoon lieutenant.

Tyson researches his possible options and learns that a platoon leader can be held accountable for the actions of his men if he should have anticipated them or possibly if he knew of them and did not report them. In this case, the charge would have to be murder since the statute of limitations ran out on other possible charges. Tyson tells his wife, Marcy, of the book and has her read it. He doesn't deny what the book charges but instead says that on the whole it is accurate. Marcy is a liberal, was very active in the 60s anti-war movement, and is somewhat skeptical of her husband's actions but still supports him.

The Tyson's social life begins to take a hit and the tabloids begin to focus first on Ben and second on Marcy. A famous picture of a nude Marcy which was first printed in Life in the 60s is reprinted. Tyson is visited by Chet Brown, a mysterious high-level agent, who advises and warns him to play fair and not attack the Army, thereby further dirtying Vietnam and America's role in it. He also learns that the Army is looking into assigning him active orders again so that they will be able to court martial him for murder.

Part Two: Chapters 15–41

Tyson is given the notice that he has been summoned to return to active duty, the first step before he will be court-martialed. The Army enlists Major Karen Harper to lead the investigation to see if Tyson should be court-martialed. The two meet and Tyson explains a different story to her of the Hue Hospital incident that contradicts Picard's. In his version, the platoon did not know the building was a hospital and that it was fortified by Vietnam soldiers. His platoon scored a victory over the Vietcong in the hospital. Tyson visits the Vietnam War Memorial and sees Larry Cane's name on it. Cane served in his platoon and died in the hospital incident. According to Picard's book, he was shot by Vietcong as the platoon approached the hospital. Tyson reflects on the kind letter he wrote to the Cane family, speaking of his bravery, and ensuring them that he died quickly without pain. He then reflects that this latter part was the only truth, something he knew because he "shot him through the heart."

Tyson meets Major Karen Harper again and tempers run high as he smashes a glass across the wall. Harper tells him of the two men who told Picard about the story: a medic, Steven Brandt, and a soldier, Richard Farley. She also tells him the other infantry gave exactly the same story he did. Tyson and Harper begin to develop an attraction for each other but neither acts. They talk about truth and justice, the nun who Picard interviewed who is missing (Sister Theresa), and what should be done (whether Harper should recommend Tyson be court-martialed for murder). The reader also begins to learn of the environment that Tyson's platoon was in. The 25-year-old Tyson was leading a platoon of 17-, 18-, and 19-year-olds who had witnessed and participated in horrific battles over the last few months.

Tyson visits Picard and shares a friendly visit with him where both men learn to respect the other. Picard seems to regret indicting Tyson in his book. Tyson decides to swim across the inlet from Picard's to the summer residence his family recently moved into to avoid publicity. His knee which was wounded in Vietnam, gives out and he almost drowns. He reconnects with his wife. And then reports to active duty. He meets with Colonel Levin and is ordered to stay on base and serve as a museum guide. On Levin's recommendation, he gets a good defense attorney. He also meets with Major Harper again who tells him she's found enough evidence to submit a charge of murder but at the same time suspects the government is tampering with the case. Harper asks if he can discredit Brandt. He says that he possibly could but then he would be like Brandt, bringing up war horror that should be left as it was. He denies her accusation that he has no self-preservation instinct by saying that he does but will not lower himself like others have. The two almost embrace but Tyson's wife Marcy comes to the door just before they do.

A groundswell of public sentiment has been building for Tyson, as more and more people feel the war is over and the Army is hanging him out to dry. General William Van Arken, the Judge Advocate General of the Army, who started the entire process learns well-respected Colonel Horton that it is just that. Van Arken does not listen and says that it has already begun. Tyson sets up a meeting with and then punches the tabloid journalist who smeared his wife before Chet Brown and his guys intervene and talk with Tyson again. Tyson and his attorney Vincent Corva hear of and begin preparation for the trial process. We also learn that two weeks after the Hue Hospital incident, Tyson was wounded with shrapnel and the medic Brandt tried to kill him by injecting a lethal dose of morphine.

A pre-trial Article 32 investigation takes place in which Corva pins Tyson with his medals for bravery in the Hue battle (one was never given to him and Karen Harper just procured it). This irritates Colonel Pierce, council for the prosecution. Major Harper interviews Andrew Picard and identifies that Sister Theresa told Picard that Tyson "spared" or "saved" her life. She spoke in French, however, and used "sauver" which could mean either. She asks Picard why he did not include this and he responds that it was an error of omission that he left out, because it did not fit with Brandt's story. Harper also gets Picard to admit that the nun said Brandt was a man who abuses young girls. Picard then explains that this trial of Tyson is a travesty and that he, now believes Brandt lied to him about Tyson ordering his troops to shoot anyone in the hospital and that he thinks Tyson's troops mutinied. Moreover, he states that even Tyson's platoon, in his estimation, were victims of "war, combat fatigue, and shock." Despite the positive results for Tyson, Col Gilmer decides to recommend a court martial in which Tyson will be tried for murder.

Part Three: Chapters 42–54

The court martial begins with Pierce calling Richard Farley to the stand. Farley, a paraplegic gives wrenching testimony against Tyson. He first explains an incident the morning of the Hue Massacre in which Tyson "ordered" his troops to shoot civilians, then explains the Hue Hospital Massacre, how Tyson had all the platoon swear to never tell of the incident to anyone, and how the group concocted a new, different story to explain it. Corva cross-examines him and it is learned that Farley stated that Tyson said to "waste them" in the hospital. Then, according to Farley, the platoon killed everyone. Corva gets Farley to admit that Tyson said to "waste the Gooks" and that Tyson meant only enemy soldiers.

Court is adjourned and Tyson meets Brandt in a back alley. Brandt is terrified and Tyson ambiguously talks about what Brandt did to him the last time they saw each other and how the other men are upset with him, and that there would be payback. Brandt's testimony supports Farley's and is damaging to Tyson. He explains how Tyson was very mad the hospital staff was not helping his wounded soldier and how the soldier was already past the point of life. Corva gains some on his cross-examination of Brandt as it becomes clear he may not be telling the whole truth. In particular, Corva attacks Brandt's explanation of the first shots that rang out in the hospital and that how he cannot identify who they were from. Corva also gets Brandt to tell the court that Beltran threw a grenade into one room when before he said he couldn't see who did that. A barrage of questions and dialogue ends with Corva asking, "Did you see Larry Cane shoot anyone?" and Brandt responding, "No." To which Corva responds, "Larry Cane was dead, Mr. Brandt."

The court members then question Brandt, asking him many questions about the incident and why he did not tell anyone until just recently. The prosecution rests, but after their performance Tyson's five platoon witnesses are unsure of testifying. Their lawyers are urging them not to because they could then face perjury charges. These witnesses offer to make statements in extenuation and mitigation if a guilty verdict is given. Tyson considers testifying but realizes it will be better to make a statement in the sentencing phase. The defense rests without calling any witnesses. There is a lengthy wait in which Tyson rejects seeing his family. The court members find Tyson guilty (2/3 concurring).

Chet Brown meets with Tyson and tells him that if he reads a given statement he will be pardoned and serve no jail time. Corva also learns that the Army has found Dan Kelly, Tyson's radiotelephone operator. Kelly's testimony is similar to Brandt's but with glaring differences. He first explains Tyson's sarcastic order to shoot the civilians the morning of the Hue massacre. He explains how it was Tyson's men who were overly aggressive in attacking them and that Tyson was irate and sarcastically left them with that remark. In fact, Kelly even reports on hearing Simcox and Farley talking about how Tyson is "too soft of the gooks."

Kelly also explains how earlier, he and Tyson found Brandt raping young adolescent Vietnamese. As punishment, Tyson kicked and threw Brandt into water filled with leeches. Brandt was then cared for and Tyson returned that night to him and told him that if he did not report back to his platoon he would be court-martialed on a variety of charges. Upon hearing the beginning of this, Brandt leaves the courtroom.

Kelly then explains the Hue Massacre. Colonel Sproule the judge, interrupts him, asking why he did not mention the death of Larry Cane outside the hospital. Kelly responds that this is because Cane was still alive in the hospital. Kelly explains how Peterson was dying at the feet of Tyson, begging for help. After the doctor refused to treat him, Tyson slapped him. Farley and Beltran then put Peterson on a hospital bed. An Australian then came into the room shouting obscenities at the American soldiers and America in general. Larry Cane screamed at him and then shot him. Beltran then shot two North Viets. Cane then fired his M-16 all over. Kelly and Tyson dove on the floor. Tyson drew his pistol, aimed it at Cane, and ordered him to drop his rifle. He didn't and Tyson shot him dead. Kelly then goes on explaining how pandemonium ensued, how Farley was livid that Tyson shot his friend, and how Beltran and the men mutinied and had their guns locked on Tyson. Tyson said they would all be charged and probably would have been shot, but Kelly punched him to remove the threat from Beltran and the others. Finally, Kelly explains how Tyson was a prisoner for a while, how he had to radio certain comments to remain alive, and how he eventually got control back by explaining that they would take an oath to never mention the incident again.

Court adjourns and Tyson sees his wife and son for the first time in a while. The court-martial is concluded with Tyson giving a speech. He explains that he will not give a speech of extenuation and mitigation and how he knows that the crime he committed was nothing that happened in the hospital but instead the fact that he never reported what happened. He explains how he briefly considered reporting it but only briefly. And that, even though he knows it was an immoral and illegal one, he would make the same decision. He does explain how he was somewhat protecting his men and that he is sad for them and their families now that the truth has come out. But at the same time he points out that this sadness is nothing compared to the innocent lives lost at the hospital. He ends by saying he cannot think of anything extenuating and mitigating. Corva then questions him to continue and an awkward questioning phase begins until Tyson admits that everything could come under battle fatigue.

Court adjourns and the members reach a decision quickly. They sentence Tyson to be dismissed from the Army and that is all. Pierce storms out of the courtroom. Tyson meets and embraces his family, and states, "Let's go home."

''The Sniper'' is about a tough New York City Police Department Sergeant named Joe Ryker and his pursuit of a murdering sniper named Homer Cyrus. (In the later reprints of the book, the antagonist's name is changed to Henry Cyrus.) The sniper chooses his victims at random, killing with the cold skill of a professional. Detective Sgt. Ryker is going after him in a deadly battle; only one will survive!

A supersonic passenger jet flying over the Pacific Ocean is struck by an errant missile. Due to the effects of decompression and oxygen deprivation, all but a handful are incapacitated. Three survivors must attempt to land the airplane, despite attempts to cover up the disaster.

Tony Abrams, a former police detective who served at the NYPD's Intelligence Division is working as the office's investigator for the O'Brien, Kimberly, and Rose law firm of New York. He stumbles upon a swirl of intrigue that leads to discovery that for over forty years a there is an active mole, code-named Talbot, within the CIA.

Talbot's mission is to carry out a secret plan devised by rogue elements in the USSR government, to attack the United States with a first-strike weapon, an unprecedented attack that would cause a mortal blow to the country. It is up to Abrams and the lawyer Katherine Kimberly to stop him.

The novel's hero is U.S Air Force Colonel Sam Hollis, a former F-4 Phantom Fighter pilot who fought in Vietnam. Hollis was shot down during the war and was disqualified from flying. Later on he was transferred to US Air Force Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer and air attaché at the American embassy in Moscow. A young American MBA graduate driving in the Russian countryside encounters another American, claiming to have escaped a secret Russian POW camp—leaving numerous others behind who are still captive and being used to "Americanize" Soviet spies. When the information reaches Hollis, he begins to investigate and discovers a secret so dangerous that might cost him his life.

Welcome to the Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic - and often hilarious - point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, ''The Gold Coast'' is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

Sixteen-year-old Sybel lives alone on a mountain, with only the mythical creatures that her deceased father Ogam summoned for company. Sybel cares for the creatures and shares a type of telepathy with them. However, in the dead of night, a man named Coren of Sirle gives her a baby to care for. Coren believes the baby is none other than the child of Rianna, the now deceased queen of Eld, and her dead lover, Norrel, although it is later revealed that he is the son of Rianna and Drede, king of Eldwold. Sybel accepts the baby, Tamlorn, on Coren's conditions that she love it, and cares for Tamlorn with the help of the witch Maelga who lives near the mountain.

Twelve years later, Coren comes back for Tamlorn. Sybel refuses to return him, believing that Coren and his brothers would use Tamlorn in their plot against Drede, the king of Eld. She later reluctantly gives Tamlorn to Drede along with the mythical falcon Ter, to watch over Tamlorn. As a result Sybel falls into a depression and resumes her quest to summon the Liralen, a legendary white bird. Instead, she not only finds the Blammor, a creature of shadow that induces fear, but the wizard Mithran who has been paid by Drede to destroy Sybel's will and hand her over to him. However, Mithran desires Sybel and Sybel manages to escape by summoning the Blammor who crushes every bone in Mithran's body to splinters.

Upon returning to her home, where Coren is recovering from his injuries caused by one of the creatures in Sybel's care, Sybel induces Coren to marry her, knowing he loves her and she can use him and his love as a tool for revenge against Drede. They journey to Coren's home and get married. Later in the book, Sybel and Coren transport the mythical beasts and Sybel's books to Coren's home.

Sybel plans to start a war between Coren's people in Sirle, who oppose Drede, and Drede. Coren discovers this and is upset with Sybel. The Blammor, whom Sybel held on condition of her fearlessness, comes to Sybel in the night, and she sees in her mind, the Liralen with its neck broken. Sybel flees to the now deserted Eld Mountain and sets all the creatures free. They choose to lure Drede and his army, and the Sirle lords and their army, away from each other, thus defusing the war (although it is unknown at the end of the book whether the lords and armies will return, other than Coren). Tamlorn wakes Sybel up and tells her that Drede had died, that he thinks that whatever killed the wizard Mithran also killed Drede, and he is now king of Eldwold. They go to Maelga's house where Sybel meets Coren, who asks her why he should return to her. She tells him he is the only person who can bring her joy, and they reunite. On a hunch, Sybel summons the Blammor which reveals itself to be the Liralen. Sybel asks the Liralen to take her and Coren home.

Felix brings his nephews Inky and Winky to the park for a picnic. However, they always seem to be delayed. While they say their grace, a rabbit gets a snake to steal their meal. When they try to get it back, it rains so they must go back home. The rain stops and the three continue to the picnic. It rains again for a short while, but then it gets better. They say their grace again before eating, and someone else steals their meal. Felix runs after the culprit however, he can't catch him. At the end of the story, a stork comes with a picnic basket. Hoping the stork has found his meal, Felix opens the basket with joy, but he finds out it is just more kittens who jump about as the cartoon ends.

Captain Ann Campbell is a West Point graduate, the daughter of legendary General "Fighting Joe" Campbell. She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found naked and bound on the firing range. Paul Brenner is a member of the Army's elite undercover investigative unit, and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the Army's "golden girl", and how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life.

''Kikokugai'' takes place in Shanghai, in a dystopian future of organized crime and cyborg assassins.

In a gay bathhouse in Manhattan, unsuspecting heterosexual businessman Gaetano Proclo has taken refuge from his homicidal brother-in-law, mobster Carmine Vespucci – whose name he uses on the register. In the bathhouse, Gaetano stumbles across an assortment of oddball characters, including a rabid chubby chaser, go-go boys, a squeaky-voiced detective, and Googie Gomez, a third-rate entertainer with visions of Broadway glory who mistakes him for a famous producer and whom he mistakes for a man in drag. Further complications arise when Gaetano's wife Vivian tracks him down and jumps to the wrong conclusions about his sexual orientation.

The film opens on an Egyptian archaeological dig in 1961.Cowie, Susan D. and Tom Johnson. ''The Mummy in Fact, Fiction and Film''. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2002. Print. Three of the main characters are introduced: Matthew Corbeck (Heston), his wife Anne Corbeck (Jill Townsend), and Jane Turner (Susannah York). Matthew and Jane are discussing their efforts to uncover the tomb of an ancient Egyptian queen. Anne is distressed by the relationship between her husband and his assistant. It is later proved that her distress is justified.

Corbeck and Turner discover a long hidden tomb that bears an inscription: "Do Not Approach the Nameless One Lest Your Soul Be Withered."''The Awakening''. Dr. Mike Newell. Warner Brothers, 1980. VHS. They continue on to discover the burial chamber of Queen Kara. As Corbeck prepares to breach the entrance, Anne begins a painful premature labour. Corbeck and Jane return to the camp and find Anne lying on the floor in a trance-like state. Corbeck takes her to the hospital and leaves her there so that he can return to the dig. Anne's pregnancy ends in stillbirth. As Corbeck and Turner open the mummy's sarcophagus, the stillborn infant is restored to life.Muir, John Kenneth. ''Horror Films of the 1980s''. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2007. Print.Maslin, Janet. "Film: 'The Awakening.'" ''The New York Times''. 31 Oct. 1980. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. Corbeck neglects his wife and daughter Margaret, and Anne takes the baby and leaves him.

Eighteen years later, Corbeck is a professor at a British university and married to Jane. Corbeck learns that traces of bacteria have been found on the mummy that threaten to destroy it. Corbeck tries to have the mummy brought back to England because he disagrees with the methods used by Egyptian professionals to preserve it. One of the specialists opposing Corbeck is killed in a freak accident, allowing Matthew to transport the mummy to England.

Margaret (Stephanie Zimbalist), now eighteen (the age of Queen Kara when she died), goes to England to meet her father against her mother's wishes. Corbeck and Jane tell Margaret all about Kara, the violent murders she committed, and the myth that she could reincarnate herself.

Corbeck's obsession with Kara grows and Margaret exhibits personality changes. People who resist Matthew and Margaret mysteriously and violently die. Margaret begins to notice the changes in herself and believes she is the one responsible for all the deaths. While visiting Kara's tomb, in Egypt, she and her father discover the Canopic jars that contain Kara's organs. Corbeck secretly brings the Canopic jars back to England. Corbeck wants to try the ritual to resurrect the ancient Queen. He believes that the spirit of the queen possessed his daughter at the moment of her birth, and that she intends to resurrect herself through the girl's body. He proposes that the only way to save Margaret, who has fallen into a coma, is to perform the ritual over Kara's mummy in the British Museum. He realises too late that Kara tricked him, and that the ritual enabled her to completely take over Margaret's body. The reincarnated Queen kills Corbeck, her future intentions unknown.

The notorious attempt by swindler James Reavis to claim the entire territory of Arizona as his own before it was granted statehood in 1912 is recounted years later by John Griff, who works for the Department of the Interior.

In 1872, Reavis went to great lengths to forge documents in Spain and create the illusion that he had a legal right to claim all of Arizona his own. He began by seeking out Pepito Alvarez to inquire about Sofia, an infant abandoned by Reavis many years before.

Reavis decides to take Sofia home with him, hire governess Loma Morales to refine her, then marry her, using fabricated proof that identifies Sofia as the rightful "baroness" of Arizona. A suspicious U.S. government, unable to disprove Reavis' claim, offers him $25 million for the rights to the land. He declines.

The surveyor general, Miller, is sure Reavis has somehow doctored the documents. He brings in Griff, an expert on forgery. In the meantime, Reavis orders settlers and families off "his" land. A displaced rancher, Lansing, tosses a bomb into Reavis' office. It still does not discourage him, so Pepito finally threatens to reveal that Sofia's parents were not Spanish land barons at all, but native Indians.

Reavis is revealed as a charlatan. He manages to talk his way out of a lynching, but ends up behind bars. After serving time, he is released and reunited with Sofia ala horse carriage in the rain.

Anthony, in his thirties, charming and broke, is back in London from the Far East after being fired from every job, kicked out of every club and left by every woman. His twin sister Kate comes over from Stockholm to rescue him. She is secretary and mistress to Krogh, a self-made millionaire who owns a multinational financial empire. The austere Krogh likes Anthony's devil-may-care attitude and hires him as a personal bodyguard. But Anthony always lets people down. He lets down Kate, who hoped for his company as an antidote to Krogh's, by chasing women. And he lets down Krogh by failing to protect him from an embittered employee, upon which an old associate of Krogh's called Hall beats the man up. Unhappy with the job, Anthony betrays both Kate and Krogh by resigning. When a further betrayal emerges, that Anthony has been leaking secrets of Krogh's private life and business to the press, Hall quietly kills him and tips the body into the sea. Losing brother, lover and job, Kate decides to move on "like Anthony" heading for Copenhagen. Krogh has lost his right-hand woman and bedmate, but his fraudulent empire continues.

As described in a film magazine, three Allied soldiers escape from a World War I German prisoner-of-war camp and arrive as stowaways in London on Armistice Day. Of the three returning soldiers, one is an English nobleman suffering loss of memory as a result of shell shock, the second is a Cockney who, because he was listed among the dead casualties and his mother took the insurance money, must remain "dead," and the third is an American who must remain "dead" due to troubles with the young woman he loves. Hence, the three live ghosts. The nobleman, given to fits of kleptomania, enters a mansion and attires himself in fine raiment and jewelry and then carries off a baby from a perambulator. Returning with a lamb gathered while crossing Hyde Park, the nobleman returns to the Whitechapel home of the Cockney where the three ghost soldiers have stopped. After a series of entanglements, there is a resolution of all issues. The English nobleman learns he has robbed his own home and taken his own child, the American and his sweetheart are reconciled and he is freed of a charge unjustly made against him, and the Cockney and his insurance matters are squared up.

Chung Siu-Hor, discovered that her husband Gan Tai-Cho was having an affair with their employee Yan-Hung. Siu-Hor and Tai-Cho owned a confectionery together known as the Moonlight Bakery. Yan-Hung forces Siu-Hor and Tai-Cho to declare divorce.

After this divorce, Yan-Hung and Tai-Cho take on the Moonlight Bakery name and prove successful, resulting in a family asset totaling HK$1 billion. Meanwhile, Siu-Hor struggles to make a living at the modest bakery she once owned with Tai-Cho. Over the next ten years, Yan-Hung manipulates the family to keep relations hostile.

When Yan-Hung has a miscarriage with Tai-Cho's baby, she blames Wing-Yuen to make him feel indebted to her. Meanwhile, Siu-Hor's sister Chung Siu-Sa comes to Hong Kong after divorcing her husband. Siu-Sa is very angry that Siu-Hor let Tai-Cho take the Moonlight Bakery name and decides to sue Yun-Hung and Tai-Cho for the Moonlight Bakery franchise. However, Siu-Sa ultimately loses the court case.

Wing-Ka lacks interest in managing the bakery; instead, he is addicted to the stock market. With Siu-Hor and Hou-Yuet's encouragement and support, he is able to quit gambling. Wing-Ka eventually falls for his cousin, Siu-Sa's daughter, Ka Mei.

When she comes back, the two fall in love again. However, the appearance of Dr. Ling Chi Shun causes So-Sum to abandon her feelings for Wing-Ho. She and Chi-Shun begin a relationship, but as it turns out, Chi-Shun already has a girlfriend named Wing-Lam. Despite Chi-Shun not having feelings for Wing-Lam, he feels indebted to her because she had helped him so much in the past.

However, she sees how concerned her family is about her and apologizes and returns home. Later, she begins developing feelings for Wing-Ka, however the appearance of Ka Mei causes Yuet to become jealous.

Wing-Yuen is the one child that sided with Yun-Hung, due to him believing that he was the one who caused her miscarriage. After breaking up with Wing-Ka, Ka Mei begins dating Wing-Yuen, despite the protest of his siblings and mother. He later has a baby with Ka Mei, but, unsure if it is his, Ka Mei gets an abortion to avoid complications.

Wing-Ho constantly tells her to find a real job, and she finally gets a job as an office clerk. There she meets Kelvin, who begins to fall for her. Initially, Kelvin's mother is against the relationship, but she eventually accepts Wing-Hing and allows them to get married.

Wing-Chung was separated from his family at a young age, being sent with So-Sum to England. His grades were very poor and he did not like university. Siu-Hor, seeing how much her son dislikes school, allows him to drop out.

Yan-Hung becomes jealous and finally decides to take legal action against Siu-Hor and Tai-Cho, wanting to take 90% of the family assets, leaving them with a mere 10%. To prevent Gwan-Lai from gathering evidence for the court case, Yan-Hung kills her. Despite losing the lawsuit, the family is still very happy. Wanting to destroy their happiness, Yan-Hung tells Ka Mei to hold a meeting to reveal that Wing-Yuen killed someone. However, seeing the error of her ways, Ka Mei instead reveals the Yan-Hung killed Sheh Gwan-Lai.

Due to the turn of events, Yan Hung faces murder charges. She tries to convince So Sum to lie and give false testimony and So Sum pretends to agree. Yan Hung later gives Sum 70% of her shares of the Moonlight Bakery as a present for So Sum and Dr. Ling's "marriage". Sum subsequently returns the shares to Tai Cho and Siu Hor and tells Yan Hung she will tell the truth behind Gwan Lai's death. Yan Hung is convicted and sentenced, while Tai Cho tells her that he will give her 50% of the shares once she finishes her jail sentence. Wing Ho and So Sum finally get together, while Hou Yuet marries Wing Ka. In a scene taking place four years in the future, it is revealed that Wing Ka is alive in his late thirties. Yan Hung, now living abroad in New Zealand, refuses to take her half of Moonlight Bakery's shares and approves of So Sum and Wing Ho's relationship.

James Sanchez is a 29-year-old gay man who feels he has reached a dead end in his life. While his best friend Roxy, an actress-turned-activist, struggles to show him there is life beyond the glitz of the disco ball, his other friend, Brandon works on getting James to socialize. Feeling out of place in the world and caught between his Hispanic-American heritage and his homosexuality, James grows, realizing that life is in the journey, not the destination.

Throughout his long journey to find a partner, James dates many different men, many of whom he meets in gay bars. He attempts to find a man online, which leads him to Mike. They go on a date, which seems to be "perfect," but Mike never calls back. Throughout his relationship troubles, James also deals with his parents, who try to be much too accepting (they buy him overly stereotypical gifts such as musicals and a sex swing for special occasions), a lack of a job, a lack of inspiration for his talents as an actor and his lack of confidence to approach the man he has a crush on, the hot and sexy coffee barista in the cafe down the street. After going through friendship troubles, all too depressing moments and losing his apartment's electricity, he struggles his way back into life by getting an acting job and perhaps finding the man of his dreams.

The special focuses on an old Norwegian holiday legend regarding the Nativity of Jesus. The plot focuses on a simple stable, which suddenly is showered with light from the Star of Bethlehem. The animals stir in their sleep. When they awaken, they realize that they can communicate with each other. At first, the animals use the ability to disparage each other and to establish superiority over each other, especially over the two hogs who are not allowed into the stable. An ox, the apparent leader of the animals, is angered by such behavior, as it reveals that they are acting like humans. The animals realize the error of their ways, and attempt to make amends when word reaches them (through the donkey carrying Mary) that an expectant couple desperately needs shelter.

At first, the animals refuse to allow the humans into the manger, as they look down on them and their behavior. But, the animals relent, and Mary and Joseph are allowed into the stable for the night. That night, as Jesus is born, the animals are overwhelmed with love for each other—even the hogs are allowed into the stable for the first time to see the baby. Then, the animals come to the realization that they have been given the gift of speech to tell the world of the "miracle"—the birth of Christ. However, as they run through Bethlehem, each animal loses his gift. They return to the stable in silence—but with newfound respect and love for each other. The ox, the last one to lose his speech, is left to wonder if humanity will ever understand the miracle it has been given.

The Chia sisters (Cheng Pei-pei, Lily Ho and Chin Ping) perform as the backup troupe with their magician father (Chiang Kuang-Chao). The selfish old man has little regard for his daughters and squanders their hard earned money on a young floozy who plays him for a fool. After winning a go-go dance contest, the girls ditch their father and pursue their dreams.

The Stooges bid a fond farewell to their girls, Tizzy, Lizzy and Dizzy and join the war effort by enlisting in the Merchant Marines. While aboard ship, they have a brief altercation with Lt. Dungen (Vernon Dent), a Nazi spy, and then mistake a torpedo for a beached whale. Moe says they have to kill it, and it promptly explodes. After being lost at sea for several days, they come across the ''SS Schicklgruber'' and climb aboard. Now with fully grown beards, they encounter Lt. Dungen again, who does not recognize them. After realizing they are in with a nest of German sailors, they eventually overtake the crew and toss them overboard.

The action takes place over the course of several weeks in August inside the three-story home of Beverly and Violet Weston outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

'''Prologue'''
The play opens with Beverly Weston, a once-famous poet, interviewing Johnna, a young Cheyenne woman, for a position as live-in cook and caregiver for his wife Violet, who is being treated for mouth cancer due to heavy cigarette use for most of her life. Violet is a heavy drinker addicted to several different kinds of prescription drugs and exhibits paranoia and mood swings. Beverly, who freely admits that he is an alcoholic, lightly converses about Violet's current problems, most of which Beverly concedes are the result of personal demons too powerful to be cured by drugs. Violet enters the scene clearly affected by her drugs. After an incoherent and combative argument with Beverly, Violet returns upstairs. Beverly hires Johnna, lends her a book of T.S. Eliot's poetry, and continues to drink.

'''Act One'''
Several weeks later. Beverly Weston has not been seen for five days. Several family members have gathered in the house to provide support for Violet including her daughter Ivy, her sister Mattie Fae and Mattie Fae's husband Charlie. When Violet is not making calls attempting to track down her husband or popping pills, she spends the time sniping at her family, particularly Ivy, whom she criticizes for her mode of dress and lack of a romantic life. The news comes that Beverly's boat is missing, furthering the fear that he has committed suicide. Ivy's older sister Barbara arrives from Boulder, Colorado with her husband Bill and 14-year-old daughter Jean. Barbara has not visited her mother in several years, and has mixed feelings about returning to the house because of the confrontational nature of their relationship. They fall into an argument almost immediately, during which Violet accuses her of abandoning her family and breaking her father's heart.

Later in the evening, Jean bonds with Johnna after the older woman allows her to smoke some marijuana in her room. She confides to Johnna that her parents are separated and are attempting to hide the fact from the family. Bill and Barbara argue over the cause of their separation as they make a bed out of the fold-out sofa in the living room: Bill is sleeping with a much younger woman, one of his students at the university where he teaches. At five AM, the local sheriff, Deon Gilbeau (Barbara's high school boyfriend) rings the doorbell and breaks the news that Beverly has been found drowned. Barbara goes to identify the body as Violet comes downstairs in a drug-addled fog. The act ends with her spiraling into confusion.

'''Act Two'''
Several days later. The family has come from Beverly's funeral. Violet spends a quiet moment alone in Beverly's office, bitterly reproaching him for leaving her, and takes some more pills. Before the memorial dinner prepared for the family by Johnna, several family arguments and scenes arise. Ivy and Barbara's sister Karen has flown in from Florida with her new fiancé and can talk about nothing except her wedding plans, distressing Barbara. During an argument with her mother and Mattie Fae, Ivy unwittingly confesses that she is seeing someone romantically but refuses to say who. Mattie Fae and Charlie's son Little Charles has overslept and missed the funeral. His father is sympathetic but Mattie Fae is, as usual, rude to and critical of her son. Karen's fiancé Steve discovers that Jean is a pot-smoker and offers to share his stash with her, lewdly flirting with the teenaged girl. In a private moment, it is revealed that Ivy's lover is actually Little Charles, her first cousin.

Dinner is served, and Violet begins insulting and needling all of her family members. After inappropriately discussing Beverly's will at the table, she cruelly exposes Barbara and Bill's separation. When Barbara starts to fight back, Violet tauntingly reveals the full extent of her addiction, and the tensions develop into a violent confrontation, culminating in Barbara physically attacking her mother. After family members separate them, Barbara takes control of the situation, ordering that the family raid the house to discover all of Violet's hiding places for her pills.

'''Act Three'''
Several hours later things have calmed down, but the pain of the dinner confrontation has not gone away. Barbara reports that Violet's doctor thinks she has brain damage, and the three sisters share a drink in their father's study, discussing their mother. Ivy reveals that she and Little Charles are planning to run away to New York, and refuses to acknowledge the need for someone to take care of Violet. She reveals that it was Violet, not Beverly, who was heartbroken when Barbara left Oklahoma. Violet enters, now more coherent and off her drugs but no less incorrigible, is resigned to dealing with her demise on her own terms. She discusses a depressing story from her childhood with her daughters. In a private moment, Barbara and Violet apologize to each other, but it is uncertain how long the peace will last.

Mattie Fae observes a tender moment between Little Charles and Ivy, and begins taunting him again when the ever-patient Charlie finally loses his temper with his wife, berating her for her cruelty to her own son and promising her that unless she can find a way to be kind to Little Charles, he is going to leave her. The lecture is accidentally overheard by Barbara, who confirms when pressed that Little Charles and Ivy are lovers. She is shocked when Mattie Fae reveals that Little Charles is not just Ivy's first cousin but also her half-brother, the result of a long-ago affair between Mattie Fae and Beverly. Mattie Fae refuses to tell Ivy or Little Charles the truth, leaving it up to Barbara, who knows that the news will destroy Ivy, to find a way to end the incestuous affair.

Later that night, Steve and Jean share a joint, and before long, Steve attempts to molest Jean. Johnna walks in on the scene and attacks Steve with a shovel; the noise brings Jean's parents and Karen to the scene. An ugly argument follows when Jean defensively lashes out at her parents with hurtful comments about her father's affair, and Barbara slaps her. Karen leaves with Steve, choosing to lie to herself and mistakenly blaming Jean for what happened. Bill elects to return to Boulder with Jean and admits, when Barbara confronts him, that he is not going to come back to her. He leaves as Barbara tells him she loves him.

Two weeks pass. Barbara, now drinking heavily, offers Johnna a chance to quit and leave the toxic environment of the Weston house, but she chooses to stay. Sheriff Gilbeau drops by the house with the news that Beverly had stayed at a motel shortly before he committed suicide. He and Barbara nearly share a tender moment, but she is too emotionally exhausted and drunk to consummate it.

Several days later, Ivy has dinner with Barbara and Violet. Ivy attempts to tell her mother, over Barbara's objections, of her plans with Little Charles but Violet suddenly confesses that she already knows that Little Charles is Beverly's son. Ivy recoils in shock and horror, rebuffing Barbara's attempts to comfort her, and says that she will never tell him and leaves for New York anyway. Before she goes, Ivy angrily accuses Barbara of turning into Violet, stunning Barbara. Violet calmly reveals that she has deliberately destroyed Ivy and Charles' affair, which she knew of the entire time. Barbara and her mother have one last angry confrontation during which Violet blames Barbara for her father's suicide. Violet also reveals his suicide might have been preventable since she knew which motel he stayed in the night he left the house, but did nothing to help him until after she removed money from the couple's joint safe deposit box. Barbara, realizing that her mother has slipped beyond her help, leaves the house. Violet breaks down and is left only with Johnna, who ends the play with a quotation from a T.S. Eliot poem: "This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends."

The Stooges are poster hangers who manage to destroy one of the main posters when Moe pushed Curly into the poster just as their boss Herman (Stanley Blystone) comes by to check on them and they just got fired. The boys soon realize that their pay consists of tickets to the circus, but when Curly finds a huge roll of tickets, the trio start scalping them at discount price. After that they pursued by two men who wanted to arrest them for selling tickets for even money which is against the law, Curly destroys the Bearded lady (which she is a Circus freak) and he and Larry disguise themselves as a horse which Curly always loves to impersonate. After being caught by the circus owner (Herman as well) and the local sheriff (Bud Jamison) who was about to take them to prison forever, Herman decides to hire the Stooges as human targets for the spear-throwing "Sultan of Abudaba" (Duke York) but however they managed to escape from the Spear thrower by jumping into a crater Curly created after he fell from the high wire.

The Stooges want to fly for the Royal Air Force, but end up as mechanics working in an airport garage. When given the assignment of getting a mysterious squeaking sound out of the Colonel's car from his assistant Kelly (Duke York), they get sidetracked after Moe's head gets stuck in a pipe. After several painful attempts, they finally pull Moe's head out. Then, he angrily chases Larry and Curly around the vehicle, accidentally breaking the windshield in the process. The Stooges disassemble the entire engine trying to find the problem, and are still puzzled, as they are not exactly certain what a squeak looks like. Kelly comes back to retrieve the Colonel's car, with the Stooges still hoping to be airmen.

The trio promptly evacuate the garage after Kelly realizes what they have done, only to end up hiding out in a blockbuster mistaken for a sewer pipe. The blockbuster is then dropped behind enemy lines (reflecting the recent British bombing of Cologne, Germany in June 1942Solomon, Jon. (2002) ''The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion'', p. 230; Comedy III Productions, Inc., ). Moe and Curly quickly disguise themselves as German officers and Larry disguises himself as a woman (Moronica). General Bommel (Dick Curtis) and Marshall Boring (Vernon Dent) (parodies of German generals Erwin Rommel and Hermann Göring) then enter, and go about flirting with "Moronica". The Stooges eventually steal enemy secrets from under the nose of the Nazi officers, knock them cold, and escape. During their escape, a photo of Adolf Hitler gets stuck on Curly's butt. A bulldog wearing a "U.S. Marines" coat and helmet runs in and bites Curly where Hitler's photo is, and Curly runs off with the bulldog still hanging from his hindquarters.

The town of Peaceful Gulch is under attack by bandits and thugs. The mayor devises a plan to scare them out of town by creating a false report of the arrival of three dedicated marshals, using the picture from a wanted poster for three vagrants (the Stooges at .50 cents apiece or 3 for $1.00). Despite this, the boys are almost chased out of the town themselves after nearly poisoning the town's sheriff (Snub Pollard) who is suffering from lumbago, by concocting a miracle medicine. Marching themselves into a saloon, the leader of the thugs, Red (Bud Jamison), tries to placate them with drink and dance, but is soon informed of the ruse. Testing Curly's marksmanship, the trio successfully outwit them and escape.

The sheriff finally puts them in charge of guarding the bank, which gets robbed while their backs are turned. To avoid being hanged, the Stooges search the area, with Curly as the bloodhound. After momentarily getting sidetracked by hunting a skunk, Curly taking the hide for a hat, the Stooges eventually discover the stolen money, just as the gang returns to the cabin they stashed it in. Through a series of mishaps, Curly ends up in a stove with the money, however, as Red lights a fire inside it accidentally, the flames igniting Curly's bandolier, sending bullets flying and scattering the outlaws.

Leo Proudhammer, an African-American actor who grew up in Harlem and later moved into Greenwich Village, has a heart attack while on stage. This event creates the present tense setting for the novel, which is mostly narrated in retrospect, explaining each relationship with a story from the actor's life.

Barbara, a white woman, and Leo, a black man, are artistic partners for life—sometimes sexual partners, sometimes not. Jerry, their white friend, was Barbara's partner for a while, before Barbara revealed her love for Leo. Their life stories are intertwined, but not joined, due both to the racial pressures of society and Leo's bisexuality. One of Leo's lovers, "Black Christopher", is a significant political and emotional figure in the novel. Christopher's friends are all African-American, and his life centers on the struggle for racial justice. Barbara and Christopher have one sexual encounter, but, like much of the sex in the book, it is exploratory, and only significant for what it reveals to each of them.

Barbara, Leo, and Christopher remain friends throughout the novel. Caleb, Leo's brother, a World War II vet, was falsely imprisoned when he was a young man, and eventually conquers his anger at white society through his conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. He judges Leo harshly for choosing "the world" over "the kingdom of God". Caleb's religion painfully isolates him from Leo. Black Christopher, the foil for Caleb, advocates violent revolution as the means for creating a just society. Leo recovers from his heart attack and returns to the stage at the end of the novel.

The Stooges are janitors in a doctor's office working the night shift. The usual antics occur, first with Moe getting an electrical shock down his pants, leading to a cossack dance. Then, Curly gets his head wedged inside a fish bowl, containing a live fish. Though Moe and Larry eventually slide the bowl off, Curly starts to feel the swallowed fish tickling his insides. Moe manages to fish the aquatic critter out of Curly.

Outside, a crook on the lam is shot in the arm while trying to make a getaway after a robbery. The thugs bring their hurt leader (John Tyrrell) up to the Stooges, thinking the doctor's office is open for business. The boys play doctor and promptly anesthetize the wounded crook with a rubber mallet. Then, the wounded crook slides off the gurney and out the window while the Stooges' back are turned. As luck would have it, the crook lands right into a police car waiting below at street level. The other crooks flee when they see the Stooges mangle the situation, only to be captured by the policemen.

The trio, meanwhile, take cover in a spooky storage area, replete with a huge jack-in-the-box, and a scared night watchman (Dudley Dickerson). Curly is so terrified that he stumbles into a trough filled with fast-drying plaster, making him virtually immobile. As a consequence, the poor, ghostly-looking Stooge ends up scaring all involved.

King Kasyapa (Leigh Lawson) is the son of King Dhatusena (Geoffrey Russell). Kasyapa murdered his father by walling him alive and then usurping the throne which rightfully belonged to his brother Mogallana (Ravindra Randeniya), Dhatusena's son by the true queen. Mogallana fled to India to escape being assassinated by Kasyapa but vowed revenge. In India he raised an army with the intention of returning and retaking the throne of Sri Lanka which was rightfully his. Knowing the inevitable return of Mogallana, Kasyapa is said to have built his palace on the summit of Sigiriya as a fortress and pleasure palace.

Act I

Act I opens up with the Reverend Meridian Henry coaching negro students through their lines. They are interrupted by Parnell James, who brings them the news that Lyle Britten will be arrested for the murder of Richard Henry. When he leaves to inform Britten about his future arrest, the students talk amongst themselves about the struggles they face as black people.

The scene shifts to Lyle and his wife, Jo Britten, in their store. His wife brings up the death of Richard, fearful that her husband may go to jail because of a past transgression he had with another black man who died as a result of the confrontation. Lyle defends himself by claiming self-defense. When Parnell James arrives, Lyle assures both of them that they need not worry.

The scene shifts into a flashback with Richard and his grandmother, Mother Henry. He confronts her about the death of his mother whom he believes was pushed down the stairs, though Mother Henry claims she fell down by accident. Richard swears that he will protect himself from the white man at all costs, showing her a gun. Before she leaves, his grandmother pleads with him to get rid of the gun, but he takes it with him.

Soon after, Pete and Juanita, arrive to take Richard out to Papa D.’s bar. Richard brags to Pete, Juanita, and Papa D. about his exploits with white women showing them nude photos of the white women he supposedly slept with. They tell him to hide the photos so as not to cause trouble. Richard puts them away. Later, he confides in Juanita about his time up north and how he became a drug addict, hit rock bottom, and then became clean. Lyle arrives and asks Papa D. to make some change. He watches Juanita and Richard dancing, and on his way out he "jostles" Juanita. Richard and Lyle exchange words before Lyle leaves. Later that night, Richard returns home to talk with his father, the reverend, about taking the nonviolent route and hands over his gun.

The flashback ends, and the scene opens with Parnell returning to the church to reassure Reverend Meridian Henry that Lyle will be taken to court. But he also makes a point of saying that Lyle will not be convicted. Parnell tells the reverend to let the matter go. The scene ends as he departs.

Act II

Act II opens with Jo Britten and the white townspeople in her home. They discuss how frightened they have become of the black townspeople lately. Soon Parnell James arrives and gets into a debate with the white men over his paper and his place in the black community. Lyle arrives some time later, and the others continue to tease Parnell as he proposes to put black people in the jury at Lyle’s trial. The white townspeople soon leave, with only the Brittens and Parnell in the house. Lyle leaves to take a shower.

When Jo and Parnell are alone, she confronts him about her husband, Lyle, sleeping with Willa Mae who was the wife of Old Bill, the black man that Lyle had killed some years before. Parnell refuses to discuss it. Jo asks Parnell if he had ever loved a black woman. When he says yes, Jo says that it is possible that Lyle had loved Willa Mae and that he had killed Old Bill out of spite. She continues, saying that if it is possible that Lyle killed Old Bill, it is also possible that he killed Richard. Lyle returns with his son and passes him to Jo.

The scene changes to Lyle and Parnell in the store talking about Lyle’s relationship with Willa Mae. They also discuss the first time Lyle met Richard. Again, Lyle denies killing Richard. Jo arrives with their son, ending the discussion.

Another flashback occurs, showing Richard entering Brittens’ store despite Lorenzo telling him not to. Richard goes to buy two cokes for 20 cents, but only has a $20 bill. He has an awkward exchange with Jo Britten, she feels threatened, and Lyle, who had been in the backroom, enters and tells Richard to leave. Lorenzo, who did not enter the store, shouts for Richard to leave. Richard and Lyle continue to argue, and Richard knocks Lyle to the ground during the ensuing altercation, thereby humiliating Lyle in front of his wife. Richard leaves the store with Lorenzo, while Lyle issues a warning. The flashback ends, returning to Parnell and Lyle talking in the store.

Lyle slips up and describes how Richard’s body was left face down in high weeds. When Parnell asks how he knew that, Lyle claims to have read it in the newspaper. Parnell leaves soon after to go to Richard’s funeral, ending the second act.

Act III

Act III opens with Lyle’s trial; it has been two months since Richard’s death. Several people are called to take the stand as witnesses.

Jo lies about the events at the store and claims Richard attempted to sexually assault her. Papa D, the owner of the bar, explained that he witnessed Richard and Lyle leaving together one night when he was closing the bar. Lorenzo tells a simplified version of the events that transpired in the store and defends Richard's character saying he had "kicked" his drug habit. Lorenzo says Richard did not have nude photos of white women (because he did not know Richard had them). Juanita defends Richard saying he no longer does drugs and that she was trying to convince him to move North again and take her with him. Mother Henry and Reverend Meridian Henry both lie about Richard owning a gun. Parnell James defends Richard through his close friendship with Reverend Henry, but he refused to say Jo's version of the story was a lie, leaving the all white jury to believe it was true.

The court finds Lyle not guilty. Then, another flashback shows Lyle killing an unarmed, nonviolent Richard for refusing to apologize for the altercation in the store and then disposing of his body in the high weeds.

Back in the courtroom, Lyle tells Reverend Henry that he will never apologize for Richard's death. The play ends with the black characters leaving to go on a protest March, and a downtrodden Parnell joining them.

Title explanation

"Mister Charlie" is a phrase used by African Americans that refers to the white man.

• Lorenzo

The Stooges are mediocre paperhangers. Their boss Mr. Beedle (Robert Williams) advises the boys to do a good job, but the result looks like it was quickly cluttered with paper towels. Beedle is fuming, and threatens the boys, who make a quick escape across the hallway into the laboratory of the insane Professor Panzer (Vernon Dent) and his assistant Nikko (Frank Lackteen). Panzer is searching for a human brain puny enough to place in the head of his gorilla Igor (Art Miles). Curly becomes the prime candidate, and Panzer locks the boys in his lab in order to secure Curly's "contribution." Then Igor gets loose, but takes a liking to Curly, which the feeble-minded Stooge reciprocates. Eventually, the boys destroy Panzer's lab and quickly depart, taking Igor with them.

Demaris Tertiary has been assaulted by Waaagh! Gorgutz, and the Ork Nobz Ardnock, Knutta and Skyva are under threat from Gorgutz - whoever is last into the fortress the Ork horde is attacking is to be fed to the Warboss's prized collection of exotic squigs. Colonel Izraell Honor Castillian and his 96th Tallarn Desert Raiders desperately try to fight back the Ork Waaagh! at the garrison of the Senshu factory hive. Izraell's backup is defeated and his own armoured vehicle platoon is captured by the Orks and used against the garrison. The garrison is quickly destroyed, and the colonel falls down in the debris only to survive by falling into a sewage pipe. Ork Nob Skyva finds that he is the last to enter the breached garrison, much to his frustration, but then discovers Izraell and mistakes the sewage-covered human for some kind of exotic squig. Hoping to bargain for his life, Skyva captures Izraell and takes him to Gorgutz, along with Knutta and Ardnock. As they walk, Izraell, reaching through the bars of his cage, picks up a discarded plasma pistol from a pile of garbage and attempts to kill the three Nobz. Skyva, however, survives and Gorgutz believes that Skyva killed Knutta and Ardnock in order to avoid being fed to his squigs. Impressed, Gorgutz spares Skyva and suggests he keep Izraell as a lucky charm.

The story centers around Gioachino Rossini, a composer whose friends never lose faith in him—even when things go wrong. A 9-year-old girl travels back in time through a magic mirror to be his invisible assistant, overcoming the disastrous opening night of ''The Barber of Seville'' to give the world one of its most beloved operas.

A self-centered polo player (Haines) has to redeem himself after he is kicked off the U.S. team.

Jimmy Valentine is the alias of an infamous safe cracker who has just been sentenced to prison for four years for his crimes. He does not stay locked up for long, though, as he is released after ten months. When he is released, he packs his state of the art, custom robbery tools and commits several more robberies. Ben Price, the detective who put him away the first time is called to the case, but although he knows it is Jimmy (because of the style the crimes were committed with) he cannot find him. Jimmy has actually fled and he is currently in the small town of Elmore, Arkansas, with plans to rob the local bank there.

However, he finds himself love-struck by the banker's beautiful daughter, Annabel Adams, and begins to fall in love with her. In order to get such a beautiful girl, he decides to turn over a new leaf and give up his criminal career and take another alias, Ralph D. Spencer. "Ralph" opens a shoe-making store and is very successful in doing so. He even begins to like his new life, and easily wins Annabel's heart, becoming engaged to her. He writes a letter to an old friend, and tells him to meet him in Little Rock, where he will give him the robbery tools he doesn't want anymore. On the day of the exchange, however, the banker shows the town his new safe, that cannot be broken into. Annabel's nieces are amazed at the sheer size of it and begin to walk in and out of it.

Unfortunately, one accidentally shuts the door, locking the other inside. Everyone panics, as the banker has not set the combination yet, and Annabel begs "Ralph" to do something. This is hard for Valentine, as Ben Price has also tracked him down, and watches to see his decision. As Jimmy has tried so hard to start over, he finds himself making a very difficult decision. However, he decides that there is only so much air in the safe, and if he does not take action, the terrified child may suffocate. Valentine pulls out his bag of tools and breaks the safe open in a matter of minutes, surprising the people "Ralph" was with, and saving the child. (He ironically broke his own record in his haste.) Jimmy knows that since he has revealed his identity, he must leave. As he is leaving, he decides that he may as well go to prison and he surrenders to Ben. However, Ben, who knows that Valentine has truly changed, tells Jimmy he should go to Little Rock, and leaves, pretending that he never met him.

Adam Williams (James Nesbitt) breaks up with another in a long line of girlfriends and spends the evening at the pub with his friend Pete Gifford (John Thomson). Pete arrives home late, which annoys his wife Jenny (Fay Ripley), who calculated that night to be the best time for them to conceive a child. She becomes even more frustrated when she sees Pete has brought Adam back; he missed his last bus home. Rachel Bradley's (Helen Baxendale) boyfriend Simon Atkinson (Stephen Mapes) breaks up with her over dinner after taking a job in Hong Kong. Rachel angrily leaves the restaurant and telephones her friend Karen Marsden (Hermione Norris), who has just asked her husband David (Robert Bathurst) if they can get a nanny to take care of their son Josh.

Rachel crashes her car into Adam's on a supermarket car park. After a brief argument Adam suggests they exchange phone numbers, under the pretence that it is for insurance purposes. She writes hers on his rear windscreen but rain washes it off. Prompted by Pete, Adam spends a day on the supermarket car park, in the hope that he and Rachel will cross paths, but they do not meet. At a dinner party held by Karen and David, Karen suggests Rachel get out more and advises her to call Adam. They go on a date but Adam is disappointed that Rachel does not want sex. Eventually, he suggests they see a play, which happens to be on at a theatre near his house. The play is dismal but Rachel decides it is time they slept together. Jenny takes another pregnancy test, but it is negative. Adam arrives and recounts his dates with Rachel to her and Pete, telling them he loves Rachel.

Following a discussion with Pete about women and commitment, Adam argues with Rachel and angrily leaves her flat. Seconds later Simon returns, telling Rachel he has turned down the Hong Kong job. After getting locked out of the house, Karen interrupts a seminar David is holding, demanding they get a nanny. He relents, embarrassed after being shown up in front of his colleagues. Determined to get Rachel back, Adam goes to Simon's flat, where he serenades her wearing nothing but a rose between his buttocks. Jenny and Pete arrive to find Simon chasing a naked Adam down the street. The fight is interrupted by a passing policeman, who lists multiple felonies Adam has committed, until Rachel steps forward and takes the blame for what has happened. She declares her love to Adam and the two leave. Pete and Jenny watch and she tells him her last pregnancy test was positive.

The story begins with a painter named Tim Picasso who suffers critical rejection from his peers and decides to take a break in the Caribbean, where he ends up crewing on a drug smuggling sailboat. When the captain gets drunk and falls overboard, Picasso takes the boat to Florida, and meets up with Jesus Castro, the lead drug smuggler. Castro intimidates Picasso into running the drugs from Miami to Boston, however after Picasso collects the $1.5 million payment from the Irish Republican Army, he escapes by train to the New England town of Tyburn, where a winter storm is picking up force. He decides to lodge at the seaside Admiral Benbow Inn for the weekend, until he can depart for Italy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Glowery, a bitter New York City journalist and writer who believes that a rival author is sabotaging his literary career, arrives in Tyburn where he is to speak at a fiction workshop being held at the Admiral Benbow Inn. He is immediately tasered by one of Castro's detectives, who mistakenly confuses him for Picasso. Back at the Admiral Benbow Inn, the innkeeper, George Hawthorne, worries about Mr. Briscoe, a cross-dressing contract worker who is stranded in the abandoned lighthouse just off the coast because of the raging nor'easter, while his unhappy wife, Magdalene Hawthorne, threatens to leave him. The next morning, Mr. Glowery is stuck in a restaurant where he is being coerced by a psychotic cook to peddle his novel in order to pay off a debt he incurred during the night. When Professor Eggman, the director of the fiction workshop, comes across Mr. Glowery, he rescues him and brings him back to the inn. However, few people show up for the fiction workshop because of the storm. Hawthorne's wife returns from a spa with Picasso; Mr. Hawthorne informs her that he is trying to procure a prostitute for his new arrival, Jesus Castro, who has registered under the false name of Mr. Wassermann. Mr. Hawthorne asks Picasso if he has had sex with his wife and Picasso meekly admits to it.

At the lighthouse, Mr. Briscoe decides to brave the storm in a landing craft, but is immediately swamped with water and carried by the tide towards the mainland. After Castro avails himself of the services of a prostitute, he rampages around the property searching for Picasso. The storm crashes through the inn. A guest is killed by a billiards table that falls on top of him and is dragged off into the sea. Mr. Glowery is also dragged off into the sea by the storm. Castro and his assistant round up the guests and interrogate them about the location of the $1.5 million Picasso stole. In another part of the inn a fire starts. Finally, Mr. Briscoe shows up and kills Castro's assistant before knocking Castro unconscious. While Hawthorne learns his wife is leaving him for the prostitute, the inn becomes completely engulfed in flames. Picasso, Hawthorne, and Briscoe motor a lobster boat over to the lighthouse, and dump Castro's dead assistant into the sea along with Castro himself, weighed down with two cinder blocks chained to his ankles. When they land on the island, Briscoe runs into the lighthouse and blows himself up. Amongst the rubble of the lighthouse, Picasso notices the inscription "MORTE D'AUTHOR" painted on one of the surrounding rocks and says to the innkeeper "He's been thinking about this for some time, George."

''The Salt Roads'' tells a story of the Ginen fertility god, Lasirén. Lasirén moves through both the ethereal space of the Loa and the physical space of humans. She often does the latter by possession of the bodies of other characters, especially females. While inhabiting them for varying periods of time, Lasirén helps the three main human characters find their place(s) in the world, and she influences their lives and the outcomes of their decisions through direct and indirect means. The novel weaves together the stories of the three women with the common thread of Lasirén's consciousness and her efforts to help the Ginen's struggle for freedom.

The novel begins with the introduction of Mer, a slave and healer on a sugar plantation in St. Domingue. In the opening chapter, Mer and her helper/lover Tipingee deliver the stillborn child of a slave woman named Georgine. The three women later bury the body at the edge of a nearby river, and their songs and prayers deliver Lasirén into being. Lasirén subsequently appears to Mer to inform her that the salt roads are drying up, and tasks Mer with clearing them. This task underpins the majority of Mer's story - her struggles to both understand and undertake the work of clearing Lasirén's path to the minds of the Ginen drive the progression and development of the novel's plot during her lifetime. As the Haitian slaves around her, called to violent revolution by the demagogue Makandal, begin to rally against the "backra" (white slave owners), Mer struggles for a more peaceful path to freedom. Her service to Lasirén puts Mer at odds with Makandal's method of obtaining freedom, and Mer's eventual possession by Lasirén at a key point in the story results in the failure of Makandal's revolution, the killing of Makandal, and the loss of Mer's tongue. Though she is later given the chance to escape her own enslavement, Mer chooses to stay with the slaves on the plantation. It is understood that Mer embodies one of Lasirén's aspects - her duty will be to heal the Ginen, and to fight for their freedom by preserving their heritage and thus keeping the salt roads clear for Lasirén.

The second main human character in ''The Salt Roads'' is Jeanne Duval, also known as Lemer and Prosper. She is a Haitian actress and singer in Paris who becomes the mistress of the author and poet, Charles Baudelaire. Jeanne's story is a struggle for economic freedom. She seeks joy and comfort, not only for herself but also for her ailing mother. Jeanne's relationship with Charles is tumultuous, and Lasirén's influence varies over the course of Jeanne's lifetime. As wealth comes and goes for Jeanne, the novel explores the importance of love, contentment, and money, as well as their relationship to one another. Ultimately, despite a long life of physical, emotional, and economic detriment, Jeanne finds herself loved and content at the end of her life as a result of Lasirén's influence. If Mer's life is a struggle for freedom from physical enslavement, Jeanne's can be understood as the struggle for freedom from economic and intellectual enslavement.

Thais, also known as Meritet, Mary, and Pretty Pearl, is the third main human character. She is a Nubian slave and prostitute living in Alexandria, Egypt. Thais' journey begins when she and her fellow slave and prostitute, Judah, decide to run away in order to see Aelia Capitolina (present-day Jerusalem). The decision to go to Aelia Capitolina is somewhat influenced by Lasirén's mental influence on Thais. Upon reaching their destination, Thais and Judah find themselves with few resources aside from what their bodies can offer. When she arrives at the famous Christian church that was the motivation for her journey, Thais has a miscarriage in the courtyard. The resulting trauma drives her to wander the desert with Judah for months with little water or food. The experience makes Thais acutely aware of herself and her surroundings, and allows her to interact with Lasirén's consciousness. Her communion with Lasirén drives her eventual sainthood through interactions with a wandering priest named Zosimus, and Thais and Judah go on to wander the desert for the remainder of their lives. Thais's open-ended story can be considered the struggle for freedom from sexual and emotional slavery.

Though the lives of the three human characters are distinct and independent, they are woven together by Lasirén's consciousness and influence. Often, prayers to Lasirén (or one of her other forms) are the catalyst for her possession of a character and the Loa's influence in the physical world. Additionally, each character's life is a facet of the Ginen's struggle for freedom, and the results of their story arcs are each a form or measure of success in that struggle.

The game takes place on a series of islands (the titular archipelagos). These islands were created by a mysterious race known only as the Ancients. The Ancients also created another race, the Visitors, who ended up being their downfall, as the Visitors rebelled against their creators, ultimately killing them. As the blood of the slaughtered Ancients soaked into the land, the worlds they had created became twisted and poisoned. This is the world the player now finds themselves in, with the task of restoring the islands to their former, uncorrupted glory.

Introduction

The book begins as a "cozy" or "country house" mystery involving the murder of Sir James Thirkie, a member of the "Farthing Set" and the architect of the "Farthing Peace" between the United Kingdom and Germany. The Farthing Set, so named for their association with the country house of that name (and analogous to the real-life Cliveden set)[http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/20/farthing-heartrendin.html Farthing: Heart-rending alternate history about British-Reich peace - Boing Boing] prominently supportered prewar appeasement, a policy vindicated by the war's outcome. The narrative alternates between the first-person account of Lucy Kahn, daughter of the proprietors of the Farthing estate, and a third-person narrative that focuses on Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Carmichael, the lead investigator assigned to the case.

Summary

At a weekend party at Farthing House, a large country house in Hampshire, Sir James Thirkie, a prominent politician who is considered likely to become a leading minister in an upcoming cabinet shuffle, is found murdered in his room, with a yellow Star of David pinned to his chest. Though suspicion immediately falls upon David Kahn, the only Jew invited to the party, the lead investigator, Inspector Peter Carmichael, is unconvinced. Carmichael, who was sent with Sergeant Royston from Scotland Yard to investigate the murder, suspects that the star was placed on the body to divert attention towards David. Equally skeptical is David's wife Lucy, the daughter of estate owner Lord Eversley, who notes the tension between Thirke's newly-pregnant wife, Angela, and Angela's sister, Daphne, who was having an affair with Thirke.

As Carmichael begins his investigation, he requests the assembled guests to remain at the house. Chafing at the oppressive atmosphere, Lucy accepts an offer from her father to go riding, but while they are out, they are attacked by a young man, who shoots at them with a rifle before he is killed by Lord Eversley. An inspection of the body uncovers a membership card identifying him as a communist and an identity card for an Alan Brown, which is different from the name on the party identity card. Carmichael is puzzled by the incident, which appears to be unconnected to Thirke's murder. As pressure grows for Carmichael to release the guests, a search of the Kahns' apartment turns up letters that offer evidence of David's involvement with an underground Jewish organization, which sought the murder of Thirke and the other members of the "Farthing Set". Aware that an arrest would mean the effective conviction of David but still not convinced of his guilt, Carmichael convinces him to remain at Farthing House under police supervision.

Returning to London, Carmichael is given until Friday to conclude the case. His ability to act is further hampered by the political situation since Daphne's husband, Mark Normanby, the Foreign Secretary and one of the guests in Farthing House, emerges from the cabinet shuffle as Prime Minister. Exploiting both Thirke's murder and the shooting incident, Normanby announces the introduction of identity cards, the expulsion of foreign nationals, the banning of communists and a delay in the general election. Resisting political pressure to arrest David, Carmichael pursues his investigation of Angela and discovers that her baby was likely the result of an affair with the family's chauffeur. Locating Brown's girlfriend, a Agnes Timms, in Southend-on-Sea, Carmichael travels there with Royston to interview the young woman and discovers that Brown was approached by Angela to stage the attack on Lord Eversley, ostensibly as a joke. Returning to London, Carmichael learns that the yellow star was purchased by someone who claimed to be David. With a warrant now issued to arrest David, Carmichael calls to warn the Kahns and so they have time to escape.

With the Kahns now on the run, Carmichael goes to Wales to interview Thirke's mother, who recounts Angela's admission that she helped Lord Eversley and Mark Normanby murder her husband. While he returns to London to arrest Angela and Normanby, however, Carmichael discovers that Agnes has been murdered. Undaunted, Carmichael presents his findings to Penn-Barkis, the head of Scotland Yard, and identifies the involvement of the three suspects in a conspiracy to murder Thirke and place the blame on the Jews for it. After he listens to Carmichael's description, Penn-Barkis orders Carmichael to drop the case and uses Carmichael's homosexuality to blackmail him into acquiescing in the official story.

White American soul fan John Carloff (John Shea) arrives in Liverpool on a tourist coach: he's there to answer a help ad placed by black Liverpudlian Ritchie Lee (Lenny Henry) regarding setting up a mobile soul disco. Both unemployed, they nonetheless both have something to offer: John has a five-foot-high stack of original soul singles, and Ritchie has disco equipment plus an old ice cream van which has been converted into what he describes as "the Popemobile with attitude."

Although the duo bond over the music and the sense of adventure, things start off badly after they are mistakenly booked for a geriatrics evening entertainment (Ritchie: “How was I supposed to know? The bloke just asked if we were a '60s disco...”) Despite hoping that their next booking will be at "a posh house party in a Wirral mansion", it turns out to be a wedding reception in a Kirkby pub. Ritchie predicts trouble ("a wedding reception in Kirkby is a disaster! There's always some knobhead going through your records... and there's always a fight!”) but the pair turn up. As Ritchie predicts, the reception degenerates into a huge punch-up, and as John and Richie make their getaway, the van breaks down.

Ritchie then introduces John to Kecks (Pete Postlethwaite) a British Rail buffet car attendant with high ambitions who sold the van to Ritchie. After a quick drink (and a "French Revolution"), Kecks tells them to “take it to our kid's in the morning and he will fix it free of charge.” He then offers them a bit of paid work moving some gear from his lock up.

The following night Ritchie and John arrive outside Kecks's lock up to find a strange noise coming from within. ”What's he doing in there, drilling for oil?” Ritchie queries. Kecks appears with a number of parcels that they load into the van and take to Kecks's flat. When they arrive, Kecks tells the lads to go on up to his flat while he locks up their van, but while they're not looking he sneakily hides a parcel in the freezer compartment.

When the parcels are safely in Kecks's flat he gives the lads £20 and says, “er... and if anything else goes wrong with the van, tough shit!“ and closes the door on them. Ritchie and John then head for the nearest pub, commenting how "one minute you're down and then you're up again." As they order their beer, the bartender notes “and then you're right back down again!” as he shows the £20 note as a fake.

They hurry back to Kecks's flat and arrive just as he is trying to leave (wearing a poor-quality disguise). They force Kecks to tell them what's going on. He tells them that he has stolen some printing plates for £20 notes from a villain in London and is about to skip the country with his own little bundle of counterfeit notes, but he's hidden the plates in the van and was going to ring the lads when he was abroad to ask if they would deliver them to a contact in Parkestone. However, since the contact won't be there in till later in the week, they will have to sit on the plates for a few days. When Ritchie protests “That's great, that is! You piss off out of Liverpool and we have to hang about and listen for cockney accents!”, Kecks replies, “Stay mobile."

After being offered £1000 for delivery and another £1000 on arrival, John and Ritchie reluctantly agree to the scheme; but deny Kecks a lift to the airport. On the way out, they pass a couple of guys on the stairs. John and Richie realize that these men had cockney accents, so they head off to Parkestone. The two men - the gangster Kecks is trying to swindle (Johnny Shannon) plus his enforcer and torturer The Chiropodist (Peter Vaughan) - continue up to Kecks, where they kill him.

As John and Ritchie have a few days to travel, they decide to zig-zag to their destination because they are worried about being pursued by the cockney gangsters and the police. On catching a news bulletin, they are startled to discover that the police are looking for two men in connection with Kecks' murder.

En route they stay at a small hotel, complete with racist landlord (Tim Barker) and a llama. Richie implies to the landlord's pretty daughter Susan (Cherie Lunghi) that he and John are musicians travelling with Earth, Wind & Fire. Although Richie is attracted to Susan, it is John's bed that Susan visits. John admits to Susan that he is actually an AWOL pilot with the United States Air Force.

After leaving the hotel, Richie offers a lift to an American soldier named Curtis (Al Matthews) whose car has broken down and who needs a lift to a US base. Mindful of his AWOL status, John becomes increasingly agitated, particularly when Curtis insists that he and Richie join him for a beer inside the base. Curtis then invites them to perform a DJ gig in the soldiers' canteen. Richie is very excited to perform there, but cannot understand John's reluctance. Richie performs alone: during the gig, he takes to the stage as singer with the TAC Wing R&B Allstars, singing "Knock on Wood". Revitalised by the music, John begins to relax. Curtis invites volunteers to perform with the Allstars and Richie persuades John to join him on stage where the two sing "Drift Away" to rapturous applause, and reconcile. One of the soldiers recognizes John.

John and Richie continue to Parkestone to discover that the two gangsters have arrived first and murdered the recipient. The gangsters threaten them with a sawn-off shotgun, but when Richie blunders into a nearby lever, they are plunged into a vat of grain and suffocate.

The police arrive: Richie realizes that they have come for John when he sees military personnel getting out of the police car. John gets into the car without fuss, asking Richie to look after his records. Richie then discovers the plates that Kecks hid.

The last scene occurs months later at the Military Detention Centre in Massachusetts, USA, where John has been detained. Having completed his sentence, he is astonished to find Richie is there. Richie is resplendent in white, and driving a very large American car. Astonished by the change in his friend's circumstances, John asks what has happened: Richie explains, enigmatically, that he was "left some money", and that they have a gig in Pasadena. John points out that Pasadena is 5000 miles away, so Richie replies that they had better get a move on. The car is seen driving away into the distance as the credits roll.

Times were once serene in the lush lands of Lorin, long before technology and evil. The evil necromancer Demiwind has appeared. As a child, this seemingly harmless soul spent his time idly whittling away the hours with magically insignificant spells. Young Demiwind would make an egg float here, a chicken there, or simply conjure a lizard man or two to do this chores for him. Then disaster and puberty struck, rendering young Demiwind a walking testosterone magic machine with an eye for mischief. Some would maintain that wiping out entire villages by accident on purpose was more than mischief.

The first act is set on 11 June 1987, the day of the third consecutive Conservative general election victory. Four of the characters jump into the River Thames in despair, and in the second act wake up 700 years in the future, in a utopia where no one has to do anything they don't want to.

In 2034, computer programmer Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) invents self-replicating nanites that replace brain tissue and allow humans to control other humans' actions and see through their eyes. The first application of Castle's "Nanex" technology is a virtual community life simulation game, ''Society'', which allows gamers to manipulate live actors as their avatars. ''Society'' becomes a worldwide sensation, making Castle the richest man in the world. He then creates ''Slayers'', a first-person shooter where the "characters" are death-row prisoners using real weapons in specially created arenas. Unlike ''Society'' actors, ''Slayers'' participants are not paid; instead, they volunteer in exchange for the promise that any Slayer who survives 30 matches will earn his freedom (though no one ever has).

John "Kable" Tillman (Butler) is the crowd's favorite, having survived a record 27 matches (no inmate before him has managed to last more than ten). He is exclusively controlled by Simon (Lerman), a seventeen-year-old superstar gamer from a wealthy family.

An activist organization called the "Humanz" hacks a talk-show interview with Castle and claims that his technology will one day be used to control people against their will. The Humanz also disrupt ''Society'' play, but Castle sees both these actions as trivial. However, Castle feels threatened by Kable's winning streak, and introduces a new inmate into ''Slayers'', Hackman (Crews), specifically to kill Kable. Unknown to anyone else, Hackman will not be controlled by a player, and thus not be handicapped by the "ping" that causes a small but dangerous delay between the player's command and the Slayer's action.

Kable/Tillman's wife, Angie (Valletta), works as a ''Society'' character, but in spite of her earnings, she is refused custody of their daughter Delia, who has been placed with a wealthy family.

The Humanz contact Kable and Simon separately, warning them that Castle has no intention of letting Kable survive, and offer to create a mod that will let him escape, but only if Simon relinquishes control during the game. The escape is successful, and news outlets report that Kable has been fragged, which puts Simon in a difficult position: he is labeled a "cheater", locked out of his bank account, and investigated by the FBI for helping Kable escape.

Tillman is brought to the Humanz' hideout; he refuses to help their fight against Castle, but learns of Angie's current location in ''Society''. He rescues her, escaping from both Hackman and Castle's security forces. They are met by Gina (Sedgwick), the talk show host, secretly assisting the Humanz. The Humanz deactivate the nanites in Angie and Tillman's brains, and Tillman remembers that the original nanites were tested on him while he was still in the military. Under Castle's control, Tillman shot and killed his best friend, and was imprisoned.

Upon learning that Castle is the wealthy father who adopted Delia, Tillman infiltrates his mansion to get her back. He locates Castle, who reveals that his henchmen have already tracked down the Humanz' lair and killed all of them. He also reveals that 98% of his own brain has been replaced with nanites, but this allows him to control others, rather than be controlled. He plans to release air-borne nanites which will infect the entire United States within six months, giving him ultimate control. Hackman attacks Tillman, who easily kills him. Tillman then attacks Castle, but is frozen in place, as Castle explains that his men have reactivated his and Angie's nanites.

Unknown to Castle, Gina and Trace (Lohman) escaped the murder of the Humanz, and patch into the Nanex, revealing the confrontation to the world and exposing Castle's plans, much to the disgust of the people worldwide. It also unblocks Simon's account and restores his control of Tillman.

Castle tries to manipulate Tillman into killing his own daughter, but he resists, and then Simon's control allows him to attack Castle. He and Simon wrestle for control over Tillman, but Tillman tells Castle to imagine Tillman's knife stabbing him. Castle unconsciously does so, allowing Tillman to kill him and removing his control over everyone. With Castle dead, the world population cheers for the demise of their potential slaver and dictator, Tillman convinces his technicians to deactivate the Nanex, freeing all the "characters" in ''Society'' and ''Slayers''.

The film closes with the Tillman family taking a trip down a country road, ending with the words "Game Over".

Victoria, an anxiety-ridden young woman, receives an invitation from her sister Carolyn. The first line of the film is a voice-over: "My sister sent me a postcard, all it said was 'Come to Paris. It'll be good for you.' 48 hours after I arrived, she and everyone I'd met were dead."

Victoria arrives in Paris and Carolyn takes her home, where one of Carolyn's friends scares her with a mask. After settling in, the sisters' tour Paris and shop. During a break, Carolyn tells Victoria about a secret rave in the Catacombs of Paris that night. There is a long line of people at the catacombs, but Carolyn is friends with the bouncer and they are allowed in without waiting. Victoria is given a flashlight and follows Carolyn to the rave, where they arrive to hear an introduction by host Jean-Michel. During the rave, Victoria begins to have an anxiety attack and needs water for her medication. Jean-Michel escorts her to the private VIP area of the party, where they find Carolyn and a group of friends.

Jean-Michel pours Victoria a large glass of absinthe and tells her of a killer living in the catacombs. Raised by a Satanic Cult, the killer, "Antichrist," feeds on people who get lost in the Catacombs. Most of the group dismisses the story as a myth and they decide to go skinny dipping. Victoria declines to join them and becomes lost as she heads back to the rave. She is joined by Carolyn, and as the sisters attempt to find their way back, someone grabs Carolyn and drags her off into the darkness. Victoria finds Carolyn dead and panics. A man in a goat mask begins to chase her, and she finds shelter hiding in a storage room. When the man arrives and starts a generator, it appears that the storage room is his home. Victoria escapes and runs back toward the crowd.

She has scarcely returned when the Prefecture of Police burst in and interrupt the rave. Victoria is caught up in a mob and hits her head, and when she regains consciousness she is alone in the catacombs. She encounters a man named Henri who tries to help her, but every exit they come to is blocked. Henri falls through a rotted walkway while they are searching for a way out and injures his leg. Victoria tries to help him, but eventually gives up; she takes his map and leaves him in the dark, striking out on her own. When she finds an exit she is frightened by someone on the other side trying to get in, and she flees, fearing it is the Antichrist. After a chase through the tunnels, she hides behind a wall column, armed with a mining pick. When the pursuer approaches, she strikes out blindly with the pick and hits him.

Shortly after, Carolyn and her friends show up and tell Victoria that it was all just a prank. They wonder why Victoria is crying until they notice Jean-Michel lying dead, felled by the blow of Victoria's pick. Carolyn severely scolds at Victoria, who then kills the former and her remaining friends out of spite. Escaping at last from the catacombs, Victoria returns to the airport in a taxi and repeats the voice-over line which started the film.

The novel begins just after the main character, Joss Moody, a famous jazz trumpeter, passes away. After his death, it is revealed that his biological sex was female, causing a news rush and attracting paparazzi, leading his widow, Millie, to flee to a vacation home. The truth was unknown to anyone except Millie; the Moodys lived their life as a normal married couple with a normal house and a normal family, and not even Colman, their adopted son, knew the truth. When Joss dies and the truth is revealed, Colman's shock spills into bitterness and he seeks revenge. He vents his rage about his father's lie by uncovering Joss's life to Sophie, an eager tabloid journalist craving to write the next bestseller. After time, and a visit to Joss's mother Edith Moore, Colman eventually finds love for his father muddled together with his rage. With his new-found acceptance of both his father and himself, Colman decides not to follow through with the book deal. All the while, Millie deals with her grief and the scandal in private turmoil at the Moodys' vacation home, and a variety of characters whose paths have crossed with Joss's give accounts of their memories and experiences. Each character aside from Sophie appears to either accept Joss's identity or regard it as irrelevant.

A ship collision results in four survivors from an ocean liner winding up on a desert island: spoiled heiress Sadie, lecturer Professor Gibble, journalist Jimmy Carrol and ship's stoker Pat Plunket.

Carrol falls in love with Sadie and she kisses him. Gibble falls in love with Sadie. This causes conflict between Carrol and Gibble that results in Sadie wanting to move to the other side of the island to live alone.

Gibble gets the wrong impression that Pat and Sadie are intimate. Pat finds a bottle of rum and gets drunk.

Sadie takes over as leader on the island. When the men threaten to strike, she declares that the group will never function until she marries one of the men. They draw straws and Gibble gets the short straw, but tries to back out in favour of Pat. Then a ship appears and the group is rescued.

Safe on the ship, Gibble falls in love with Sadie again and asks her to marry him. So does Carrol. However, Sadie is in love with Pat, but he refuses her marriage proposal, saying they are too different. But Sadie persuades the ship's captain that Pat is obliged to marry her, but before it can happen that ship goes down.

Sadie wades ashore at the same island where Pat has already arrived.

A narrator explains that according to Buddhist belief the evolution of birth can be divided into three forms:

''Sangsethaca'': To be born amongst rot and decay, as a worm or maggot. ''Anthaca'': To be born from an egg, in the various forms of birds. *''Chalaphucha'': To be conceived in the womb as a human or other mammal.

Then there is a fourth form, ''Opapatika'', which goes against Buddhist beliefs because it involves suicide: a class of supernatural beings who are born out of suicide. However, the powers that they gain also have a negative effect.

The narrator, it is revealed, is Thuwachit (Pongpat Wachirabanjong), the loyal mortal henchman for the elderly Sadok (Nirut Sirijanya), an Opapatika who is quickly decaying and needs to feast on the flesh of other Opapatikas in order to sustain himself. He sends Thuwachit out to capture others.

Four Opapatikas remain: Paisol (Chakrit Yaemnam), a ruthless assassin who must bear all the scars and wounds of his victims. Jiras (Somchai Khemklad), an immortal Opapatika, and the most powerful of them all. He considers his immortality a curse. Aruth (Ray MacDonald), an invincible fighter by night, but weak in the daylight. Ramil (Athip Nana), an adrenaline-fueled daredevil who can project a monstrous, ghostly creature to do his bidding.

Investigating the Opapatikas is a private detective, Techit (Leo Putt), whom Sadok transforms into an Opapatika. Techit has the psychic powers of a mind reader, but his power costs him the use of his five senses.

Techit is teamed up with Thuwachit, who leads a vast paramilitary army against the four Opapatika. The four immortals are also mysteriously drawn to a woman, Pran (Khemupsorn Sirisukha).

Bugs (as a knave) stands in line with several knights, chewing a carrot. As Bugs finishes eating, he disposes of the carrot in the suit of "Sir Pantsalot of Drop Seat Manor" (a pun on Sir Lancelot), angering Pantsalot. After they exchange glove blows to each other (with Bugs using one of Pantsalot's gauntlets), the two agree to settle their feud with a joust.Salda (1999), p. 206-208 The joust begins with Pantsalot introduced to great fanfare, and Bugs being booed. Pantsalot beats Bugs back twice, and destroys Bugs' lance on his third attempt with his shield, earning Bugs the derision of the crowd (''"Hey! That cast-iron palooka's making a chump outta me!"''). Half-time is signaled with the entertainment consisting of a band playing music (used prior in ''Porky in Wackyland'').

The second half begins with Bugs and Pantsalot trading head blows until Bugs tickles Pantsalot using a pneumatic drill on Pantsalot's armor. Pantsalot responds by attempting to swing a cast-iron ball at Bugs, who uses a spring to cause the ball recoil and slam Pantsalot in the head. Bugs then says, "It is to laugh!", and laughs. Then, Bugs tricks Pantsalot into opening his helmet and peeking out so that he can punch Pantsalot's head back in. Pantsalot chases Bugs into a rabbit hole on the field. Bugs comes up from an adjacent hole while Pantsalot looks for him. Bugs hits Pantsalot on the head again, angering Pantsalot, who smashes what he thinks is Bugs in armor. He finds Bugs hiding in ''his'' armor as Bugs evades yet another bat to the head (making Pantsalot strike his own head). Bugs applies a needle to Pantsalot 's posterior, causing him to jump and smash into an arch before smashing back into his armor. Bugs unscrews the helmet and remarks "Look at the new ''Dick Tracy'' character, ''Accordion Head''!". Bugs is then chased into a manhole, and before Pantsalot can dive in, Bugs puts the lid on, causing yet another head blow to Pantsalot.

Bugs, thinking he has won, prepares to leave (''"I guess I'd better go phone Lady Windermere not to expect her spouse home for dinner"''), but the knights, led by Pantsalot, reappear in formation to joust together against Bugs. Bugs calls timeout and builds a glass and cast-iron steam case resembling a tank and a bomber in a nearby blacksmith shop to house himself, his pony, and lance. After emerging, Bugs and the knights charge to each other and end up (off-screen) crashing into each other, rattling the crowd.

The cartoon ends with Bugs as "The Smiling Rabbit", selling all of the defeated knights suits of armor and disposing of another carrot in what was Pantsalot's suit (''"Ehh, So it shouldn't be a total loss."'').