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The novel starts in 1979, with an abrupt end to an expedition sent by Earth Resource Technology Services Inc. in the dense rainforests of the Virunga region, in the heart of the Congo, when the team is suddenly attacked and killed by unknown creatures – soon, all contact with them is lost. The expedition, which was searching for deposits of valuable diamonds, discovered the fictional Lost City of Zinj. A video image taken by a camera there, and transmitted by satellite to the base station in Houston, shows a peculiar race of grey-haired gorillas to be responsible for the murders. Another expedition, led by Karen Ross, is launched to find out the truth and to find the Lost City of Zinj, where there are believed to be deposits of a certain diamond, the type IIb, which are naturally boron-doped and thus useful as semiconductors, though worthless as gemstones. This time, the searchers bring along the famous White African mercenary Charles Munro, as well as a female gorilla named Amy, who has been trained to communicate with humans using sign language, and her trainer Peter Elliot. Time is of the greatest essence, as a rival consortium from corporations in Japan, Germany, and Holland are also searching for the diamonds, turning the entire expedition into a race to the city of Zinj. Unfortunately for Ross and her team, the American expedition encounters many delays along the way, including plane crashes, native civil wars, and jungle predators. Eventually, Ross and her expedition reach the Lost City of Zinj and discover the consortium's camp, like the original expedition's camp, in ruins and devoid of life. Ross and her team lose contact with the ERTS HQ due to a massive solar flare, then encounter the killer gorillas and are attacked. A brief battle ensues and several gorillas are killed. After studying the corpses and performing a rudimentary field autopsy, it is concluded the animals are not "true" gorillas by modern biological standards, nor kakundakari (an African primate cryptid), but gorilla/chimpanzee/human hybrids: their mass and height is closer to humans than gorillas, their skull is greatly malformed (the "ridge" that makes gorilla heads look "pointy" is nearly nonexistent) as well as their pigmentation is on the border of albinism: light gray fur and yellow eyes. In addition, they exhibit different behavior: they are highly aggressive, ruthless and partially nocturnal. Unlike normal gorillas, the grey animals are also extremely social, a troop consisting of over a hundred, compared to a normal troop of a dozen animals. Elliot intends to name them Gorilla elliotensis after himself. Afterwards, Ross, Elliot, and Munro explore the ruins and discover that the killer gorillas were bred by the ancient inhabitants of Zinj to serve as guards to protect the diamond mines from intruders. After several more attacks, Elliot, with the help of Amy, finds a way to translate the language of the new gorillas (she refers to them as "bad gorillas") and piece together three messages ("go away", "don't come", "here bad"); they stop fighting the humans and become confused, leaving the camp. Their victory is cut short by the eruption of the nearby volcano, accelerated by explosives placed by Ross for her geological surveys, that buries the city, the diamond fields and all proof of the "new" species under 800 meters of lava. Ross, Elliot, Munro, and the rest of the team's survivors are forced to run for their lives. The team then manages to find a hot air balloon in a crashed consortium cargo aircraft and uses it to escape. In an epilogue, it is revealed that Munro was able to retrieve a few hundred carats of the valuable diamonds and sold them to Intel for use in a revolutionary new computer processor, while Amy was reintroduced into the wild and was later observed teaching her offspring sign language. 

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The crew of the Enterprise responds to messages received from the SS Tsiolkovsky, a science vessel monitoring the collapse of a supergiant star. The messages suggest, amid their rounds of laughter, that the crew has been exposed to a sudden hull breach. After the Enterprise secures the Tsiolkovsky via tractor beam, an away team beams over and finds the crew frozen to death in various stages of undress—including one who was taking a shower fully clad. A woman's body, frozen, falls into Lt. La Forge's (LeVar Burton) hands. Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) orders full medical examinations of the away team on their return, and finds La Forge sweating profusely and complaining about the temperature. She orders him to stay in sickbay but he wanders out while she is studying his test results, and makes his way to the quarters of Crusher's son, Wesley (Wil Wheaton). Unaware of La Forge's condition, Wesley shows him a portable tractor beam device and La Forge places an encouraging hand on his shoulder. Meanwhile, acting on a hunch by Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes), who had read a book on past starships named "Enterprise" that included an event involving illness and showering fully dressed, Lt. Cdr. Data (Brent Spiner) locates a historical record identifying the ailment as similar to one encountered by Captain Kirk's USS Enterprise. La Forge returns to sickbay, where Dr. Crusher quickly becomes concerned when she realizes that the infection is spread by physical contact. Much of the ship's crew comes under the influence of the ailment, including Data, who engages in a sexual encounter with Security Chief Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). Dr. Crusher, struggling against the effects of the ailment, finds the original antidote documented by Kirk's Enterprise to be ineffective, and begins devising a new version of it. Now infected, Wesley uses a digital sample of Captain Picard's voice to lure key engineering crew-members away from the engineering deck. He erects a force field around the area with his tractor beam device and assumes control of the ship. He allows one of the engineers, Mr. Shimoda (Benjamin W.S. Lum), who is acting in a childlike manner, into the force field. Mr. Shimoda manages to remove all of the isolinear chips from the engine control station and plays with them like toys. As the supergiant star collapses, a fragment is blown into a direct impact course with the two Federation ships, and without the chips in place, they cannot move out of its way. Chief Engineer Sarah MacDougal (Brooke Bundy) manages to disable Wesley's force field, and Data is sent to replace the chips. He reports that he will not have enough time. Wesley reverses the ship's tractor beam, repelling the Enterprise off the Tsiolkovsky, giving themselves the necessary additional seconds for Data to replace the chips enabling the ship to move out of the way. The crew is cured of the ailment, and Picard partially credits Wesley for helping to prevent a disaster. 

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Snuffy visits Big Bird's nest in the morning so he can be the first to wish Big Bird a happy birthday. During the opening credits, the two head out down the street as Big Bird's friends wish him a happy birthday, then everyone sings about "Big Bird's Beautiful Birthday Bash" in the arbor. The Monsterpiece Theater sketch "The King and I" is repeated from a previous episode. Big Bird and his friends will go to the Wollman Rink in Central Park for his skating party, and Maria and Susan will stay behind to decorate. Snuffy also wants to stay behind because he doesn't know how to roller skate, so Big Bird will teach him how to skate. Robin Williams shows Elmo the fun things he can do with a stick. Everyone enjoys skating at the rink, but Snuffy is not sure he wants to learn how to skate because he fears falling. Big Bird is finally able to convince Snuffy to learn, until someone falls in front of them. The song "We Are All Earthlings" follows. Maria and Susan lay out Big Bird's cake, then go to their apartments to find more chairs. Cookie Monster finds Big Bird's cake and realizes he can't eat it, so he finds other things to eat, starting with the chairs and the table. Grover sings "Monster in the Mirror" along with several celebrities. Monster on the Spot reporter Telly Monster asks if The Count will support his public television station. The Count recites a long list of reasons why, leading to a pledge break. Snuffy, still afraid of falling, tries to leave the rink. Telly asks Luis where Oscar the Grouch is. Oscar and Bruno are skating at the party because he loves falling down when skating. Bruno skates around without falling, but the skating made Oscar dizzy. Whoopi Goldberg and Hoots the Owl talk about being proud of their body parts. Big Bird impresses Snuffy with a rollerskating routine, but he can't skate like Big Bird. Big Bird and friends sing "Put One Foot in Front of the Other", which helps Snuffy skate around the rink. Cookie Monster has eaten everything around him, and when Susan and Maria come back, they take the cake away from him. The Oinker Sisters sing "A New Way to Walk", repeated from a previous episode. Everyone returns to the street and notices that almost everything has been eaten. Big Bird's friends give him his cake, sing "Happy Birthday To You", and then Big Bird blows out all the candles for his birthday wish. The credits begin as the cake is cut, but stop when Maria wonders where Cookie Monster is; he eats his slice of cake, and the sponsors for dessert. The credits continue as everyone skates at the rink. 

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Following the death of the witch Desiderata Hollow, Magrat Garlick is sent her magic wand, for Desiderata was not only a witch, but also a fairy godmother. Having given the wand to Magrat, she effectively makes Magrat the new fairy godmother to a young woman called Emberella, who lives across the Disc in Genua. Sadly, Desiderata does not give Magrat any instruction on the use of the wand, so pretty much anything that Magrat points it at becomes a pumpkin. This leaves several animals around Magrat's cottage now as pumpkins, one of which still thinks it is a stoat. Desiderata had promised Emberella previously that she will not marry the Duke, who's really a prince/frog, and now it is up to Magrat and her companions (Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg) to ensure that Emberella does not marry the Duke, despite the desires of another Witch in Genua called Lily, Desiderata's counterpart. She used the power of her own reflection to capture Genua. The journey to Genua takes some time and involves numerous mis-adventures, such as an encounter with a village terrorised by a Vampire—Greebo catches it in bat form and eats it—an incident where they encounter a Running of the Bulls-like event, a house falling on Nanny's head which she survives thanks to her hat with the willow reinforcement. Upon arrival in Genua, Magrat goes to meet Emberella, whilst the two older witches meet Erzulie Gogol, a voodoo witch and her zombie servant, Baron Saturday (who was also her late lover). It is at this time that Magrat finds out that Emberella has two fairy godmothers, Magrat and Lilith. It was Lilith who had manipulated many of the various stories that the Witches had traveled through and who was now manipulating Genua itself, wrapping the city around her version of the Cinderella story. Lilith has had people arrested for crimes against stories, including the arrest of a toymaker for not being jolly, not whistling and not telling the children stories. At this point it is revealed that Lilith is actually Lily, Granny Weatherwax's older sister. Using hypnosis, Granny convinces Magrat to attend a Masked Ball in place of Emberella. Greebo is transformed into human form to aid the witches. Emberella's dress fits, but the glass slippers do not. After enjoying themselves for a while at the ball, the witches are discovered and are cast into a dungeon. At that point, Emberella, Mrs. Gogol and Baron Saturday arrive at the Ball, having broken the witches out of their prison. A high concentration of Magic causes the Duke to revert to his frog form, and he is trampled by Baron Saturday causing Lilith to flee. Granny starts to follow, but Mrs. Gogol tries to stop her using a voodoo doll, wanting to kill Lilith. Granny uses Mrs Gogol's own belief in the power of the voodoo doll to make the voodoo doll burst into flames when Granny thrusts her own arm into a flaming torch. Granny Weatherwax then pursues Lilith. Emberella is informed that, as the daughter of the late Baron Saturday (who was the late Duke in Genua), she is now Duchess of Genua. Her first command is to end the Ball (she dislikes them) and attend the Mardi Gras parade, a form of binge drinking carnival. Granny manages to defeat Lilith by trapping her in a mirror, and the three Witches return home. Granny shows Magrat how to use the wand to do magic, that it takes more than wishing. Magrat throws the wand into a river, to be lost forever. Then the Witches go home, the long way, and see the elephant. 

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It was an ordinary rescue mission for dam controller Togashi Teruo (Yūji Oda) and his colleague Yoshioka Kazushi as they set out to assist a few climbers who met an unexpected blizzard near the Okutowa Dam. Unfortunately, Yoshioka was injured while helping the others and Togashi had no choice but to seek help alone. Things got worse when WHITEOUT - a meteorological phenomenon – appeared and Togashi lost his best friend forever. Meanwhile, with the most advanced technology, Utsuki Hirotaka (Koichi Sato) and his group of terrorists blow up the only main road to Okutowa Dam, the largest dam in Japan. They take over the dam along with the workers as hostages. They demanded JPY 5 billion from the government with a 24-hour deadline. To let the government know that they mean business, they decide to kill the hostages one by one unless they hear a definite answer from the highest government official. Among the hostages is Hirakawa Chiaki (Nanako Matsushima), Yoshioka’s fiancée whom Togashi promised his best friend to take good care of if anything bad should happen to him. To make things more complicated, there was a snowstorm and no one can get in or out from the dam. Either the government pays the ransom or the dam will blow up along with the 200,000 residents living close to it. Fortunately, Togashi was not captured by the terrorists and he is now on his own to fight the well-equipped terrorists and to rescue both Hirakawa and the Okutowa Dam alone. 

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The narrator opens the story on a passenger liner traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the Nazis, Dr B, a securities expert hiding valuable assets of the nobility from the new regime, maintains his sanity only through the theft of a book of past masters' chess games which he plays endlessly, voraciously learning each one until they overwhelm his imagination to such an extent that he becomes consumed by chess. After absorbing every single move of any variation in the book, and having nothing more to explore, Dr B begins to play the game against himself, developing the ability to separate his psyche into two personas: I (White) and I (Black). This psychological conflict causes him to ultimately suffer a breakdown, after which he eventually awakens in a sanatorium. Being saved by a sympathetic physician, who attests his insanity to keep him from being imprisoned again by the Nazis, he is finally set free. After happening to be on the same cruise liner as a group of chess enthusiasts and the world chess champion Czentovic, he incidentally stumbles across their game against the champion. Mirko Czentovic is a nearly illiterate and moronic peasant prodigy possessing no obvious redeeming qualities besides his gift for chess. Dr B helps the chess enthusiasts in managing to draw their game in an almost hopeless position. After this effort, they persuade him to play alone against Czentovic. In a stunning demonstration of his imaginative and combinational powers, Dr B sensationally beats the world champion. Czentovic immediately suggests a return game to restore his honour. But this time, having sensed that Dr B played quite fast and hardly took time to think, he tries to irritate his opponent by taking several minutes before making a move, thereby putting psychological pressure on Dr B, who gets more and more impatient as the game proceeds. His greatest power turns out to be his greatest weakness: he devolves into rehearsing imagined matches against himself repeatedly and manically. Czentovic's deliberation and placidness drive Dr B to distraction and ultimately to insanity, culminating in an incorrect statement about a check by his bishop, and then him conceding the game, after which Dr B awakens from his frenzy. 

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Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns an important silver-mining concession near the key port of Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and uses his wealth to support Ribiera's government, which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, Gould's refurbished silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of revolutions and self-proclaimed warlords, plunging Costaguana into chaos. Among others, the forces of the revolutionary General Montero invade Sulaco after securing the inland capital; Gould, adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies, orders Nostromo, the trusted "Capataz de Cargadores" (Head Longshoreman) of Sulaco, to take it offshore so it can be sold into international markets. Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to his position through his bravery and daring exploits. ("Nostromo" is Italian for "shipmate" or "boatswain", but the name could also be considered a corruption of the Italian phrase "nostro uomo" or "nostr'uomo", meaning "our man"). Nostromo's real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza—Fidanza meaning "trust" in archaic Italian. Nostromo is a commanding figure in Sulaco, respected by the wealthy Europeans and seemingly limitless in his abilities to command power among the local population. He is, however, never admitted to become a part of upper-class society, but is instead viewed by the rich as their useful tool. He is believed by Charles Gould and his own employers to be incorruptible, and it is for this reason that Nostromo is entrusted with removing the silver from Sulaco to keep it from the revolutionaries. Accompanied by the young journalist Martin Decoud, Nostromo sets off to smuggle the silver out of Sulaco. However, the lighter on which the silver is being transported is struck at night in the waters off Sulaco by a transport carrying the invading revolutionary forces under the command of Colonel Sotillo. Nostromo and Decoud manage to save the silver by putting the lighter ashore on Great Isabel. Decoud and the silver are deposited on the deserted island of Great Isabel in the expansive bay off Sulaco, while Nostromo scuttles the lighter and manages to swim back to shore undetected. Back in Sulaco, Nostromo's power and fame continues to grow as he daringly rides over the mountains to summon the army which ultimately saves Sulaco's powerful leaders from the revolutionaries and ushers in the independent state of Sulaco. In the meantime, left alone on the deserted island, Decoud eventually loses his mind. He takes the small lifeboat out to sea and there shoots himself, after first weighing his body down with some of the silver ingots so that he would sink into the sea. His exploits during the revolution do not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for, and he feels slighted and used. Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing, he is consumed by resentment, which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction, for he has kept secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea. He finds himself becoming a slave of the silver and its secret, even as he slowly recovers it ingot by ingot during nighttime trips to Great Isabel. The fate of Decoud is a mystery to Nostromo, which combined with the fact of the missing silver ingots only adds to his paranoia. Eventually a lighthouse is constructed on Great Isabel, threatening Nostromo's ability to recover the treasure in secret. The ever resourceful Nostromo manages to have a close acquaintance, the widower Giorgio Viola, named as its keeper. Nostromo is in love with Giorgio's younger daughter, but ultimately becomes engaged to his elder daughter Linda. One night while attempting to recover more of the silver, Nostromo is shot and killed, mistaken for a trespasser by old Giorgio. 

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Apprentice Jurisfiction agent and SpecOps-27 operative Thursday Next is taking a vacation inside Caversham Heights, a never-published detective novel inside the titular Well of Lost Plots, while waiting for her child to be born. In the book, she encounters two Generics, students of St Tabularasa's who have yet to be assigned to a book, and DCI Jack Spratt, a detective who partners with her in investigating a murder. Since Thursday is an "Outlander", a "real" person rather than a fictional character, Spratt hopes that she will help them appeal to the Council of Genres to prevent the disassembling of Caversham Heights, a fate inevitable for books which languish unpublished in the real world. Using a Caversham Heights as her base of operations, Thursday continues her apprenticeship with Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. Meanwhile, fictional character Yorrick Kaine is loose in Thursday's real world and conspiring with someone in Text Grand Central, the final arbitrators of plot, setting, and other story elements, to release BOOK version 9, code-named UltraWord. UltraWord is touted at a Jurisfiction meeting as the greatest advance "since the invention of movable type" because it creates a thirty-two plot story system and allows the reader to control the story. Thursday slowly loses her memory of Landen, though Gran Next remains with her and keeps her from forgetting him completely. In doing so, she also battles Aornis Hades, the villainess, who nearly converted the world to Dream Topping in Lost in a Good Book, who is present in her memory as a mindworm. Thursday learns that Harris Tweed, Kaine's partner, is masquerading as a Jurisfiction agent to get UltraWord released, which he states will "fix literature". She investigates the details of UltraWord and makes some alarming discoveries. At the 923rd Annual BookWorld awards, Thursday demonstrates a variety of issues with UltraWord; it makes books impossible to read more than three times, thus rendering libraries and second-hand bookstores useless, and the quality of the writing is also substantively poorer. Tweed and Kaine call for a vote before the audience can be convinced by Thursday's argument. In this unprecedented emergency, Thursday uses her Jurisfiction operative TravelBook to summon The Great Panjandrum, ruler of the BookWorld and literal deus ex machina. The Panjandrum calls for an immediate vote which goes against UltraWord and calls on Thursday to take the job of Bellman, the superintendent of Jurisfiction. Thursday accepts the position. In the aftermath of the BookWorld awards, the two Generics, now calling themselves Randolph and Lola, Thursday, and her pet dodo Pickwick retire to Caversham Heights, which was bought by the Council of Genres as a character sanctuary, a solution that appeals to the residents of the novel as well as the nursery rhyme characters who were going to go on strike. The story of the new Caversham Heights constitutes Fforde's fifth book, The Big Over Easy. The American edition has an extra chapter at the end, documenting the weathering of a WordStorm during Thursday's tenure as Bellman. 

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The movie is about a documentary team that follows the reunion of Hard Core Logo. Joe Dick gets the band back together ostensibly for an anti-gun benefit after hearing Canadian punk rock legend Bucky Haight, and personal mentor, is shot. They begin the tour in Vancouver and travel thousands of kilometers east along the Trans-Canada Highway to Winnipeg, then northwest along the Yellowhead Highway to Edmonton. On the way the band's dark secrets are revealed, however while they travel they keep ignoring each other's darkness . John Oxenberger loses his schizophrenia medication and slowly loses his sanity. Billy Tallent finds out that by going on tour he loses his position in mainstream rock band Jenifur and with that his one shot at stardom. The band stops by Bucky Haight's reclusive estate only to find he was never shot and that Joe Dick fabricated the lie in order to get the band together. The band and documentary crew drop acid and experience hallucinations. Bucky admonishes Joe Dick for using him to get the band together. At Edmonton, Billy Tallent finds out he has another opportunity to permanently join Jenifur. Joe Dick finds out from the film crew and later attacks Billy on stage. Joe Dick destroys Billy Tallent's Fender Stratocaster, which was a gift from Bucky Haight, and the band parts ways. In the final scene Joe Dick drinks with the documentary crew members and shoots himself in the head. 

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Part I begins with the story of Tom's birth: he is the product of an illicit affair between King Arthur and Angelica, the Lord Mayor of London's daughter. To conceal their adultery, Arthur and Angelica secretly send their child to be raised by Antonio, a Lincolnshire shepherd. The shepherd raises Tom as his own, but Tom's innate nobility leads him to seek adventure as the "Red Rose Knight." He leads a life of crime before his adoptive father berates him and reveals that he was a foundling. Arthur, who realizes that Tom is his son, sends his knights Lancelot, Tristram, and Triamour to bring him to court. Tom is immediately made a Knight of the Round Table, but Arthur does not reveal his identity. Tom woos the court with his feats of martial valor, culminating with his success in England's war against Portugal. He then sets out with a company of knights on an adventure to find his parents. Tom's ship lands on an island called Fairy Land, inhabited entirely by women. Tom sleeps with the queen, Celia, but is compelled to return to his quest. He sets out, vowing to return. Back on the ship, Lancelot tells the tale of the great love between a young girl and prince Valentine of Greece. At length the ship comes to Prester John's kingdom, where Tom defends the king against a dragon before making off with his daughter Anglitora, who subsequently gives birth to the Black Knight. Tom attempts to return to Fairy Land, where Celia has given birth to his son, who will later be known as the Faerie Knight. They get within sight of the island, but a trick of the tides prevents the ship from landing. Thinking she is abandoned, Celia pins a note to her chest and drowns herself in the sea. Tom's crew recovers her body and sails back to England, where they bury her with full honors. Part II largely undermines the action and motifs of Part I. A dying Arthur reveals his adultery with Angelica, and Tom's parentage is revealed. When Anglitora finds out he is illegitimate, she kills him. His spirit goes on to tell the Black Knight her deed, and he in turn kills her. Both the Black Knight and the Faerie Knight end up traveling together on many adventures. 

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In 1797 it was rumoured briefly that Rawdon (Moira) would replace Pitt as Prime Minister. There was some discontent with Pitt over his policies regarding the war with France. Additionally, Pitt's long tenure in office had given him ample opportunity to annoy various political grandees, including but not limited to The Duke of Leeds and Lords Thurlow and Lansdowne. In mid-May a combination of these various figures, coupled with a handful of Members of Parliament, proposed to make Rawdon (Moira) the Prime Minister. Having fought in the American War and having led an expedition to Quiberon, he commanded widespread respect. His relationship to the Prince of Wales also established him as a potential rival to Pitt, who was supported strongly by George III. p.407 The prime motivation for the plan of having Rawdon (Moira) become Prime Minister was to secure peace with France, the plotters having come to believe (somewhat unfairly) that Pitt was an obstacle to this objective. But their plan collapsed barely a month later in mid-June because of a lack of support from the political establishment. Additionally, when Rawdon (Moira) wrote to the King to propose the change of chief ministers, the monarch ignored him. Thus the proposal came to nothing.Hague p.407 He became Commander-in-Chief, Scotland with the rank of full general in September 1803. 

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Young bachelors and best friends Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble have recently qualified as crane operators at Slate & Company. Soon to be employed, now they want dates, and a little green alien The Great Gazoo, exiled to Earth by his species, offers to help, although only they can see him. Meanwhile, Wilma Slaghoople wants a normal life and activities, like bowling, despite her controlling mother Pearl, who wants her to marry smooth casino-owner Chip Rockefeller. Wilma angrily runs away to Bronto King in Bedrock. Waitress Betty O'Shale mistakes her as "caveless", and offers to share her apartment, and gets her a job. Fred and Barney are smitten with the waitresses and invite them to a carnival, with Fred dating Betty and Barney taking Wilma. However, the couples do not really feel a connection until both men switch dates. Fred wins a carnival game and gets a prize of an egg which hatches into a baby dinosaur, which he names "Dino". Wilma invites her new friends home to a birthday party for her father, Colonel Slaghoople, where all are shocked by her wealth. Fred intends to propose but changes his mind after meeting Chip, who berates him for his low-level job at Slate & Company. Pearl dislikes the three new friends, but the Colonel, glad Wilma is happy, accepts them and privately gives Wilma a valuable pearl necklace that once belonged to his great-grandmother. After the boys disgrace themselves at dinner, Wilma nevertheless proclaims her pride and follows them out. Chip congratulates Fred on attracting Wilma and apologizes for his humiliation of Fred's job. He invites the four to his Rock Vegas resort as a peace offering. However, this is a plot by Chip to hope Fred gambles so Wilma dumps him, whereas Fred sees it as a chance to win big so he can impress Wilma with money like Chip's. Chip and his girlfriend Roxie are visited by two gangsters named Big Rocko and Little Rocko to collect a lot of money owed by Chip, who claims his upcoming marriage to Wilma will get him access to the Slaghoople fortune, and the gangsters consider that plan creditable, so they agree to suspend collections until after the wedding. Gazoo witnesses the entire conversation. When Barney tries to keep Fred from high-stakes poker, Chip sends Roxie to seduce Barney for an escort to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Chip keeps Fred gambling to miss his dinner date with the others. Betty sees Barney wipe cream from Roxie's chest and misinterprets the move as a pass. Mick Jagged comforts the weeping girl, and they go on a date. Wilma breaks up with Fred over not spending any time with her. Chip warns her of burglaries and arranges that Fred loses everything before slipping Wilma's pearls in Fred's pocket and asking him to empty them. Hotel security arrests Fred for robbery. When Barney protests that Fred would do no such thing, and that Fred would not even be able to crack his own knuckles without help, Chip accuses Barney of being Fred's accomplice and has him arrested, as well. Angered that the two of them stole from her, Wilma goes back to Chip. In prison, the men are visited by Gazoo, who earlier spied on Chip. Gazoo reveals that Chip is in severe debt to the mob, and hoped to solve both his problems by framing Fred for the robbery and plans to marry Wilma to get the Slaghooples' money. Barney slips through the bars, steals the keys, and unlocks the cell. Disguised as dancers, they accidentally run into Jagged's dressing room. Barney tells Betty he loves her, and they get back together after the misunderstanding involving Roxie at the buffet is cleared up, and Barney knocks out Jagged. Fred plans to disguise himself as Jagged in an attempt to reconcile with Wilma. Meanwhile, in the audience, Chip proposes to Wilma, but she is unresponsive. Fred then comes on stage disguised as Jagged and briefly sings to Wilma. He apologizes for his behavior earlier before proposing to her. Knowing that she still loves Fred, Wilma happily accepts, rejecting Chip, and they marry in the Rock Vegas Chapel of Love, while the gangsters prepare to make Chip pay in their own manner. After the pastor proclaims them husband and wife, everyone sings "Meet the Flintstones". When Jagged sings "Viva Rock Vegas" at a party, Betty catches Wilma's tossed bouquet and kisses Barney. The newlyweds drive away with Dino and Gazoo to goodbye waves from their friends, family, and even a handcuffed Chip and Roxie. 

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Two years after Norman Osborn's death, Peter Parker, a.k.a. the superhero Spider-Man, is estranged from both his love interest Mary Jane Watson and his best friend Harry Osborn; he also discovers that his aunt May is facing eviction. He finds himself suffering temporary, but recurring losses of his powers, often in life-threatening situations. Harry, who is now head of Oscorp's genetic and scientific research division, is sponsoring a fusion power project by nuclear scientist Otto Octavius, who befriends and mentors Peter. While handling hazardous materials, Octavius wears a harness of powerful robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence. During a public demonstration that Peter and Harry attend, a power spike causes the fusion reactor to destabilize. Octavius refuses to shut down the reactor, which goes critical – killing his wife and burning the inhibitor chip blocking the arms from his nervous system. Peter, as Spider-Man, shuts the experiment down, destroying it in the process. At a hospital, doctors prepare to surgically remove Octavius' harness. Without the inhibitor chip, the now sentient arms defend themselves by killing the doctors. Upon regaining consciousness and seeing the carnage, Octavius escapes and takes refuge at a harbor. Becoming increasingly influenced by the arms' AI, he decides to re-try his experiment. He robs a bank to fund a second experiment. Peter and May coincidentally are there, and Octavius takes May hostage. Peter rescues her, but Octavius flees with the stolen money. The Daily Bugle subsequently dubs the scientist Doctor Octopus. Mary Jane becomes engaged to astronaut John Jameson, the son of Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson. Peter suffers an emotional breakdown over his inability to balance his life and loses his powers. He quits being Spider-Man, returns to his normal life, and attempts to reconcile with Mary Jane, but with little success. A garbageman brings Peter's costume to Jameson, who takes credit for driving Spider-Man into hiding. Peter tells May the truth behind his uncle Ben's death and how he is responsible. May forgives him, but the rise in New York City crime rates worries Peter. Requiring the isotope tritium to fuel his reactor, Octavius visits Harry to demand it. Harry agrees in exchange for Spider-Man, whom he believes is responsible for Norman's death. He tells Octavius to seek Peter, who Harry believes is friends with Spider- Man, but tells Octavius not to harm him. Octavius locates Peter, tells him to find Spider-Man, and captures Mary Jane. Her endangerment leads to Peter's powers resurrecting. As Jameson admits that he was wrong about Spider-Man, Peter steals his costume back from the Bugle and goes after Octavius. As Peter battles Octavius, they fall onto a New York City Subway train. Octavius sabotages the controls and leaves Peter to save the passengers, which he does at a great physical toll. When he faints from exhaustion, the grateful passengers save him from falling and bring him into the train, seeing his unmasked face but promising to keep their knowledge hidden. They unsuccessfully try to protect him when Octavius returns to capture Peter, whom Octavius delivers to Harry. After giving Octavius the tritium, Harry prepares to kill Spider-Man, only to be shocked to see Peter under the mask. Peter convinces Harry to direct him to Octavius' lair, as bigger things are at stake. As Peter arrives at the doctor's waterfront laboratory and attempts to rescue Mary Jane discreetly, Octavius discovers him, and they battle as the nuclear reaction swells and starts threatening the city. Peter ultimately subdues Octavius, reveals his identity, and persuades Octavius to let his dream go for the greater good. Octavius commands the tentacles to obey him, and gives his life to destroy the experiment. Mary Jane sees Peter's true identity and feelings, which he says is why they cannot be together. Peter returns Mary Jane to John, and leaves. Harry is visited by a vision of his father in a mirror, pleading for Harry to avenge his death. Enraged, Harry shatters the mirror, inadvertently revealing a secret room containing prototypes of the Green Goblin's equipment. On her wedding day, Mary Jane abandons John at the altar and runs to Peter's apartment. After they kiss, they hear police sirens, and Mary Jane encourages him to go help as Spider- Man. 

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The plot of Tron 2.0 centers around Alan's son Jethro "Jet" Bradley. Since the events of Tron, ENCOM has been taken over by a company called FCon (Future Control Industries). During a phone conversation between Jet and his father, Alan is kidnapped. Ma3a, an artificial intelligence designed by Alan, digitizes Jet into Alan's computer. She informs Jet that she needs him to aid her against J.D. Thorne, an executive from FCon who attempted to digitize himself into the computer as well, but became corrupted during the process and turned into a virus spreading throughout the system. Upon arriving, Jet is captured by Kernel, the system's security program, and is accused of being the source of the corruption. However, Kernel spares Jet on the recommendation of Mercury, a program also tasked to help Ma3a, and sends Jet to the light cycle arena. After winning several matches, Jet escapes the arena with Mercury's help. After the two reunite with Ma3a, the server is reformatted due to its rampant corruption, which results in Mercury's demise. Jet escapes to the original ENCOM grid with Ma3a and accesses an archive with the help of an antiquated program, I-No, to retrieve the source code for "Tron Legacy", an update to the original TRON that Alan wrote to protect Ma3a. Jet and Ma3a then access the Internet and find a compiler, which they use to begin compiling the Tron Legacy source code. During the process, Thorne attacks them and appears to kill Ma3a, while Jet receives a communication from Guest, the User who had assigned Mercury to help him. Accessing a video uplink, Jet sees his father trapped inside a storage closet, who holds up a sign telling him to not compile the Legacy program. However, the compile finishes before Jet can abort it, and Legacy activates, revealing that its sole function is to kill all rogue Users in the digital world. Jet escapes in a light cycle, and FCon inadvertently saves him by capturing Ma3a with a Seeker search program. Having recovered the correction algorithms necessary to digitize a human, Alan is sent to Thorne's corrupted server and assists Kernel and his ICPs (Intrusion Countermeasure Programs). Meanwhile, Jet finds Thorne at the heart of the server and confronts Kernel in a duel that ends in Kernel's destruction before he can kill Thorne. Thorne, in a moment of lucidity, begs Jet for forgiveness and tells him how to enter FCon's server before he dissipates. Alan and Jet break into FCon's server, which the corporation is planning to use to distribute Datawraiths - digitized human hackers - across the worldwide information network for purposes of corporate and international espionage. After Alan and Jet crash the server, the CEO of FCon (which the game implies could be Ed Dillinger, the ENCOM senior executive from the original film) orders Baza, Popoff, and Crowne into the system themselves. Alan, wanting to verify the purity of the correction algorithms, removes them from Ma3a to inspect them. As a result, when the three FCon employees are digitized, they become a monstrous amalgam that chases Jet into the digitizing beam. Jet battles the monster amalgam and ejects the employees out of the beam, releasing their code from the corruption one by one. Severing the CEO's control, Alan and Jet extract and save the Tron Legacy code as the ENCOM servers crash. The game ends with Alan planning to reassemble the digitized FCon team and bring them back to the real world. 

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Shokichi Amamiya (Hideji Otaki) is a difficult 69-year-old man, married to Kikue (Kin Sugai). He dies suddenly of a heart attack, and it falls to his daughter Chizuko (Nobuko Miyamoto) and son-in-law Wabisuke Inoue (Tsutomu Yamazaki) to organize the funeral at their house. Among other things, the family have to choose a coffin, hire a priest, hold a wake, learn formal funeral etiquette and hold the service itself. During the three days of preparation, various tensions within the family are hinted at, such as resentment of a rich but stingy uncle, Inoue's affair with a younger woman, and possibly an affair the dead man himself had with a female gateball player. After the service, the long suffering wife delivers a dignified speech to the family regretting that the hospital would not let her be with her husband as he died. 

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The film begins with the funeral of one of the three Tempio brothers. These men are violent criminals. Mourning the passage of their beloved brother Johnny are Chez and Ray. Ray is cold and calculating. Chez is hot tempered. Flashbacks show us that Johnny was more sensitive. Exposure to communist meetings as a spy sway Johnny's opinions. The chief suspect in Johnny's murder is rival gangster Gaspare Spoglia. Ray and Chez swear revenge. Ray's wife, Jeanette, opposes the campaign of retribution and the violence it will bring, while Chez' wife, Clara, struggles to deal with her husband's obsessive nature. As it turns out, Johnny was not murdered by rival gangsters, but by a man who first claimed Johnny had raped his girlfriend, but who later admits, just before Ray kills him, that he wanted revenge because Johnny had beaten him up in front of his girlfriend and friends. As he buries the dead murderer, Chez reflects on his brothers' lives before the tragedy. He then returns to Ray's house and shoots and kills Ray and all of his bodyguards. Chez then shoots Johnny, lying dead in the casket, before putting the gun in his own mouth and committing suicide as the family women wail over Ray's dying body. 

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Fox (Walken) and X (Dafoe) are corporate extraction specialists, half headhunters, half kidnappers, who specialize in helping R&D; scientists relocate from corporations who would rather see them dead than working for their competitors. Fox is obsessed with one Hiroshi (Yoshitaka Amano) a paradigm-shattering super-genius who is currently working for Maas, the corporation (Gibson employs the pre-World War II term zaibatsu) who crippled him. To that end, Fox and X employ Sandii (Argento), a "Shinjuku-girl", or small-time hustler/call girl, to help "persuade" Hiroshi to defect to Hosaka, another zaibatsu to which Fox is somewhat warmer. Fox is responsible for brokering the deal with Hosaka, Sandii for getting Hiroshi to fall in love with her and defect to a Hosaka lab in Marrakech (Fox and X are based in Tokyo, hence their ability to pick up a Shinjuku girl), and X is responsible for teaching Sandii how to make Hiroshi melt. Sandii disappears, Fox is killed, and X retreats to the safest place he knows, the New Rose Hotel, a derelict capsule hotel. 

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Set in the near future, huge megacorporations control and dominate entire economies. Their wealth and competitive advantage reside in the human capital of their employees and the intellectual property they produce. Corporations jealously guard their most valuable employees and go to great expense to keep them safe and happily productive. There is little point in traditional corporate espionage as new products are developed at a lightning pace; there is no time to capitalize on the intelligence acquired from a rival firm, as it will be obsolete before it can be used. The story follows two corporate extraction agents, who perform the new version of corporate espionage, grabbing scientists and engineers from rival firms. Given the level of protection offered, extracting them from a company is a highly dangerous affair. In the story, the narrator and his partner Fox have joined up with a new associate, Sandii, in an attempt to extract an extremely talented biologist from a hot new German research company. The company's security is superb, and the attempt takes considerable time to plan. After successfully extracting the scientist, Sandii disappears. The scientist begins work at his new company in a secret lab in Africa, only to learn he has been infected by a deadly disease that kills him and everyone else in the lab. Realizing they have been betrayed, Fox and the narrator run, their bank accounts wiped out by their now-former employer. Convinced the two are behind the whole affair, Fox is killed in retaliation and the narrator goes into hiding. The story takes place a week after the events, in run-down capsule hotel in Japan, the New Rose Hotel. The narrator spends his time waiting for assassins to arrive, pining over Sandii, and contemplating suicide. "New Rose Hotel" presents a bleak future as extrapolated from contemporary economic and social trends. Set in the same period and universe as Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, it is solidly cyberpunk in its style and vision. 

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Earth has been devastated by a nuclear war instigated by five terrorists, and it has taken 2 million years for the radioactive clouds to once again allow sunlight to reach the surface. Only a handful of humans have survived the apocalypse, while the rest have changed into mutants who roam the radioactive wastelands. Eventually, humanity's true ancestors – fairies, elves and dwarves – resurfaced and live in the idyllic land of Montagar in peace for three millennia. While her people celebrated 3,000 years of peace, their ruler Delia, queen of the fairies, fell into a trance and left the party. Puzzled, the fairies followed her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. They were the kindhearted Avatar who spent much of his boyhood entertaining his ailing mother with beautiful visions and his mutated brother Blackwolf, who was pure evil, never visiting his mother, but spending his time torturing small animals. When Blackwolf learned of their mother's death, he attempted to usurp her leadership, being defeated in a duel against a grief-stricken Avatar. Blackwolf left Montagar with a vow to return and "make this a planet where mutants rule". 3,000 years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch, where he and his vast army of goblins, ogres, wraiths, demons, dragons, and mutants salvage and restore ancient technology. He tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi propaganda footage, using his magic to enhance it for psychological warfare: inspiring his own soldiers while horrifying enemy troops into submission. Peace, Avatar, Weehawk and Elinore Meanwhile, in Montagar, Avatar has become a tutor tasked with training the president's daughter, Elinore, to become a full-fledged fairy. Suddenly, the president is assassinated by Necron 99, a robot sent by Blackwolf to kill all believers in magic. Avatar confronts the robot and battles it using brain reading. Necron 99 loses the desire for war and Avatar changes his name to Peace "in the hopes that he will bring it". Avatar learns from the robot that the "dream machine" – the projector – is Blackwolf's secret weapon, inspiring his armies with images of ancient warfare. Avatar, Elinore, Peace, and the elf berserker Weehawk set out to destroy the projector and save the world from another Holocaust. In a forest inhabited by fairies, Peace has an intuition that something is amiss shortly before the group is accosted by the leader of the fairies, Sean. Weehawk realizes that Peace is missing, when an unseen assassin kills Sean and kidnaps Elinore. Avatar and Weehawk begin to search for Elinore in the forbidden Fairy Sanctuary, but Weehawk falls into a chasm and insists that Avatar leave him and find the girl. He locates her, captured by fairies and small human-like creatures, just as she is about to be killed. Avatar attempts to explain that they did not kill Sean, but the fairies do not believe him and shoot him with an arrow. Wounded in the shoulder, Avatar refuses to fight back, which impresses the fairy king. Instead of executing them, he merely teleports Avatar and Elinore to a snowy mountaintop. Avatar and Elinore resume their journey, despite the poor conditions, but they soon realize that they are wandering in circles. Peace, along with Weehawk (who he saved from a vicious monster in the chasm), find Avatar and Elinore. Together, they find their way out of the mountains. Soon, Avatar and the others encounter the encamped army of an elf General who is preparing to attack Scortch the following day, but Blackwolf launches a sneak attack that night. Elinore is outside with Peace when she accidentally disturbs his internal conflict with one of Blackwolf's demons, which Avatar quickly dispatches when it attempts to hurt Elinore. But when one of Blackwolf's battle tanks arrives to destroy the camp, Elinore kills Peace, then manages to disable the crew before she climbs into the tank as it drives off with Avatar and Weehawk watching in confusion. The next day, Avatar and Weehawk enter Scortch by ship and make for Blackwolf's castle, while the General leads his elf warriors in a bloody battle to distract Blackwolf's forces. The pair split up, Weehawk tracking Elinore while Avatar goes after Blackwolf. Weehawk nearly kills Elinore, but she explains that Blackwolf had been controlling her mind ever since she first touched Peace. Blackwolf declares his magic superior to Avatar's and demands his surrender, Avatar admitting that he has not practiced magic for some time and offers to show Blackwolf one last trick that their mother showed him when Blackwolf was not around. Avatar then pulls a Luger pistol from his upper left sleeve and fatally shoots Blackwolf through the heart. With the loss of their leader and the projector destroyed, the mutants give up fighting. With Montagar's safety secured, Weehawk returns home as the new ruler, while Avatar and Elinore decide to start their own kingdom elsewhere. 

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The prologue follows the actions of National Guard Sergeant "Nicotine" Crockett, who, along with Kenny, Francisco and Tomboy, desert their posts and rob the protagonists of the previous film. Meanwhile, off the coast of Delaware lies Plum Island, home to two feuding Irish families: the O'Flynns and the Muldoons. The former family, led by Patrick O'Flynn, round up a posse to kill the undead on the island. O'Flynn learns that the Muldoons are keeping their undead loved ones safe until a cure is found. Tensions come to a head when O'Flynn and his posse arrive at the Muldoon house to dispatch their undead children, only to engage in a brief gunfight that leaves a woman dead as well. Unable to put the children down himself, Patrick surrenders his weapons when the Muldoon posse arrives. Seamus Muldoon contemplates killing Patrick until Patrick's daughter Janet suggests he be exiled from the island instead. Boy joins the National Guardsmen and through him they learn of Plum Island. They watch a video made by Patrick and follow the instructions in it that leads them to a nearby dock. At the dock, O'Flynn and his men attempt to rob the Guardsmen, which results in a shootout. Francisco steals a ferry boat and bites off the finger of an attacking zombie in the process. All of the O'Flynns but Patrick are killed by zombies, and he boards the ferry. During the trip to the island, Patrick says that he sent other people to Plum Island to anger the Muldoons. When the group reach the island they discover that the Muldoons have chained up their zombies in imitations of their previous lives. They also see that the people sent to the island by Patrick have been killed. Patrick sees his daughter Janet ride by on a horse, apparently dead and turned into a zombie. Patrick attempts to gather allies when two Muldoons attack them, shooting Crockett and Kenny. The latter dies from his wounds, and is shot in the head by Patrick to prevent reanimation. Francisco realizes that he infected himself when he bit off the zombie's finger, and asks Tomboy to shoot him to keep him from turning. Tomboy shoots him and is then captured by Muldoon. Patrick finds out that the daughter he saw earlier was actually Janet's twin sister Jane. Janet, still alive, joins Patrick and the Guardsmen in their attack on the Muldoons. A standoff occurs at the bridge that separates the two families' land, and the O'Flynn group is captured; Boy and Janet escape. Muldoon reveals his attempts to persuade the zombies to eat something other than human flesh, and uses Jane as a test case. He tries to persuade the dead woman to bite her horse, but instead she attacks and bites her sister Janet. A melee ensues and captured zombies are released, consuming people from both sides. Muldoon and O'Flynn call a truce that is almost immediately broken when Muldoon shoots O'Flynn, who pulls a hidden gun and kills Muldoon. Crockett and his group attempt to leave the island. Janet witnesses her sister bite the horse and rushes to tell Crockett's group the news. Patrick shoots his daughter to prevent her turning before he succumbs to his own wounds. Crockett, Boy, and Tomboy board the ferry and escape the island while the zombies are eating the horse. Crockett muses about the purpose of war as the reanimated O'Flynn and Muldoon stagger toward each other and attempt to shoot and kill each other again. 

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The film opens at a traditional male British public school in the late 1960s, as the pupils return for a new term. Mick Travis, Wallace, and Johnny Knightly are three non-conformist boys in the lower sixth form, their penultimate year. They are watched and persecuted by the "Whips", upper sixth- formers given authority as prefects over the other boys. The junior boys are made to act as personal servants for the Whips, who discuss them as sex objects. Early scenes show the school's customs and traditions. The headmaster is somewhat remote from the boys and the housemasters. The protagonists' housemaster, Mr. Kemp, is easily manipulated by the Whips into giving them free rein in enforcing discipline. Some members of the staff are shown behaving bizarrely. One day, Mick and Johnny sneak off campus and steal a motorbike from a showroom. They ride to a café staffed by an unnamed girl, about whom Mick fantasizes wrestling while nude. Meanwhile, Wallace spends time with a younger boy, Bobby Philips, and later shares his bed. Later, the three boys drink vodka in their study and consider how "one man can change the world with a bullet in the right place." Their clashes with school authorities become increasingly contentious. Eventually, a brutal caning by the Whips spurs them to action. During a school-wide military drill, Mick acquires live ammunition, which he, Wallace, and Johnny use to open fire on a group of students and faculty, including Kemp and the school chaplain. When the latter orders the boys to drop their weapons, Mick assaults him and cows him into submission. As punishment for their actions, the trio are ordered by the headmaster to clean out a large storeroom beneath the main hall. In a surreal sequence, they discover a cache of firearms, including automatic weapons and mortars. Joined by Philips and the girl from the café, they commit to revolt against the establishment. On Founders' Day, when parents are visiting the school, the group starts a fire under the hall, smoking everyone out of the building, where they open fire on them from the rooftop. Led by the visiting General who was giving a speech, the staff, students, and parents break open the Combined Cadet Force armoury and begin firing back. The headmaster tries to stop the fight, imploring the group to listen to reason, and the girl shoots him dead. The battle continues, and the camera closes in on Mick's determined face as he keeps firing. The screen abruptly cuts to black and "if...." is seen in red letters. 

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Hortense Cumberbatch, a successful black middle class optometrist in London who was adopted as a child, has chosen to trace her family history after the death of her adoptive mother. After being warned by public officials about the troubles she could face by tracking her birth mother down, she continues her investigation and is baffled to learn that her birth mother is white; she does not resent this fact and wants to know more about her mother's past. Hortense's birth mother, Cynthia Purley, works in a cardboard box factory. She lives in East London with her other illegitimate daughter Roxanne, a street sweeper, with whom she has a tense relationship. Cynthia's younger brother Maurice is a successful photographer who lives in the suburbs with his wife Monica. The couple also experience domestic difficulties. Monica is often abrupt, but later scenes reveal that she suffers from severe menstrual cramps. She and Cynthia have never liked one another: Monica regards her sister-in-law as self-pitying and overly hysterical, while Cynthia deems Monica greedy and snobbish. Maurice only occasionally sees Cynthia and Roxanne despite not living particularly far from them, but he and Monica both look forward to celebrating their niece's upcoming 21st birthday. When Maurice pays Cynthia a rare visit, she breaks down in tears, berating her brother for his absence. Before leaving, he gives Cynthia money to pay for repairs on the house and tells her of his and Monica's wish to hold a barbecue for Roxanne's birthday. Roxanne is revealed to have a boyfriend, Paul, whom Cynthia has never met. This leads to an argument between mother and daughter; Roxanne storms out, leaving Cynthia in tears. Shortly thereafter, Hortense rings Cynthia and starts to enquire about "baby Elizabeth Purley", whom she says was born in 1968. Cynthia realises that Hortense is the daughter she gave up for adoption as a teenager and hangs up the phone in distress, but Hortense, still determined to learn more about her background, rings Cynthia again and eventually manages to persuade her to meet her. When they finally come face to face, Cynthia, not expecting Hortense to be black, insists that a mistake has been made with the birth records. Hortense convinces Cynthia to look at some documents pertaining to Hortense's birth. Cynthia remains convinced that Hortense is not her daughter until, suddenly, she retrieves a memory and begins to cry, stating that she is ashamed. Hortense then asks who her father was, to which Cynthia replies, "You don't wanna know that, darling." The pair continue to converse, asking questions about one another's lives. Soon Hortense and Cynthia have struck up a friendship; Cynthia, who is not in the habit of going out, suddenly finds herself doing so frequently, catching the attention of Roxanne, who is confused by her mother's secrecy. On one of their meetings Cynthia gives Hortense a late birthday gift and mentions to her Roxanne's birthday party. She asks Maurice if she can bring a "mate from work" to the barbecue; when he says yes, she relays this information to Hortense, who agrees to attend and pose as Cynthia's colleague despite the likelihood of her feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The day of the party arrives and Monica makes an effort to be welcoming. Cynthia makes passive-aggressive remarks in passing about the seemingly high expenses of Monica's decorating their large house instead of concentrating on giving Maurice a child. Maurice tells Roxanne that she has a good brain and should be in college; Roxanne does not take this suggestion seriously. Everyone gathers for the barbecue and Maurice prepares the food. During the meal Hortense evasively answers the many questions that are put to her by the other guests. When Roxanne blows out her birthday candles Cynthia begins to act in an exceptionally nervous manner; while Hortense is in the bathroom, Cynthia reveals that she is her daughter. Roxanne dismisses this claim, assuming that she has had too much to drink. However, when Monica inadvertently confirms it as true, Roxanne is horrified and storms out of the house. Maurice attempts to pacify the situation by confronting Roxanne at a nearby bus stop, and he and Paul manage to convince her to speak to her mother. While they are out, Cynthia and Monica quarrel over the latter's perceived selfishness; Cynthia says that Monica should "try bringing up a kid on [her] own," to which Monica says nothing. When Roxanne, Maurice and Paul return, Cynthia apologises to Roxanne profusely and explains matters: she got pregnant at fifteen and was sent away by her father; after the adoption she never expected Hortense to seek her out. Maurice then reveals that Monica is physically incapable of having children before losing his temper and complaining that he has spent his whole life trying to make people happy yet those he loves most "hate each other's guts". After witnessing all this Hortense tries to leave but Maurice stops her, admiring her courage for trying to find her own past, although he will not reveal who her father was either. Cynthia then explains that Roxanne's father was an American medical student vacationing in Benidorm whom she met at a pub. One morning, Cynthia awoke and he had gone. Cynthia and Monica reconcile. After a while things have calmed down and Hortense pays a visit to Cynthia and Roxanne at their home. Hortense reveals that she always wanted a sister. Roxanne reveals that she would be happy to introduce Hortense as her half-sister notwithstanding the long explanations that it would entail. They gather for a visit at Cynthia's, and have tea. 

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In the late 1860s in the fictional town of Salt Licks, Texas, young Travis Coates has been working to take care of his family ranch with his mother and younger brother, Arliss, while his father goes off on a cattle drive. When a "dingy yellow" dog comes for an unasked stay with the family, Travis reluctantly takes in the dog, which they name Old Yeller. The name has a double meaning: The fur color yellow pronounced as "yeller" and the fact that its bark sounds more like a human yell. Though Travis initially loathes the "rascal" and at first tries to get rid of it, the dog (a yellow cur), eventually proves his worth, saving the family on several occasions, rescuing Arliss from a bear, Travis from a bunch of wild hogs, and Mama and their friend Lisbeth from a loafer wolf. Travis grows to love Old Yeller, and they become great friends. The rightful owner of Yeller shows up looking for his dog and recognizing that the family has become attached to Yeller, trades the dog to Arliss for a horned toad and a home- cooked meal prepared by Travis' mother, who is an exceptional cook. Old Yeller is bitten while saving his family from a rabid wolf. Travis is faced with the harsh decision that he must kill Old Yeller after the fight with the wolf, which he does because he cannot risk Old Yeller becoming sick and turning on the family. Old Yeller had puppies with one of Travis' friend's dogs, and one of the puppies helps Travis get over Old Yeller's death. They take in the new dog and try to begin a fresh start. 

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Blood takes place in an unspecified time period. The various levels contain elements from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, in addition to futuristic and retro-futuristic technologies and a weird West theme. Many elements are anachronistic, including weapons and pop-culture references. The sequel, Blood II: The Chosen, retroactively dates the game to the year 1928. The backstory is not delineated in the game itself, only on the Monolith website and a readme text document. The player takes on the role of Caleb, once the supreme commander of a cult called "The Cabal", worshipers of the forgotten god Tchernobog. Known as a merciless gunfighter in the late 19th century American West, Caleb joined the Cabal in 1871 after meeting Ophelia Price, a woman whose husband and son may have been murdered by the members of the Cabal; it is implied that she later became Caleb's lover. Together they rose to the highest circle of the dark cult, "The Chosen", until all four members of The Chosen were betrayed and killed by Tchernobog for unspecified failures. Several years later, Caleb rises from his grave, seeking answers and vengeance. In search of Tchernobog's minion, the gargoyle Cheogh, Caleb moves to the rail yard and station, where he boards the northbound "Phantom Express". He fights off the undead which swarm the train, finally stopping the train by blowing up the locomotive. Emerging from the wreckage, cutting through swarms of Cabal loyalists and other creatures, Caleb enters the "Great Temple". A teleporter in the temple leads Caleb to Cheogh's altar, where he fights and slays the creature. Caleb finishes by lighting up Ophelia's funeral pyre to cremate her body. The player confronts Cerberus (left) and Tchernobog Caleb heads to the Arctic north on a large icebound wooden sailing ship. He disembarks at a lumber mill the Cabal has transformed into a crude human remains processing area. He makes his way into a mine in search of Shial's lair. Navigating the Cabal infested tunnels, Caleb finds a dark stony cavern where he defeats Shial, crushing her with a stomp of his boot. He then rips out and consumes the heart of the webbed corpse of Gabriel, another of the betrayed Chosen, thus gaining the power of his fallen comrade. Cerberus is promoted to Tchernobog's second in command. Caleb moves across an industrial facility, entering a nearby dam control installation located near Cerberus' cavern, then blows up the dam with explosives. The resulting flood makes Cerberus' hideout accessible. Caleb fills Cerberus' stomach with bundles of TNT and blows up the corpse. Caleb heads for the "Hall of the Epiphany" where Tchernobog is waiting. There, before facing him, Caleb learns why "The Chosen" were cast down: Tchernobog knew Caleb would return to him, killing anyone he ran into to take his revenge and thus gaining immense power, something Tchernobog wants for himself. Caleb battles and destroys the dark god. One of Tchernobog's worshipers approaches Caleb and declares him their new god. Caleb shoots him and leaves the Hall of Epiphany. 

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Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) walks his wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao) along the promenade to the school where she teaches students on the station. They discuss Bajoran culture, a topic Miles learned about from Neela (Robin Christopher), his Bajoran assistant. At the school, Keiko teaches her class about the science of the Bajoran wormhole and the aliens that live inside it. This scientific view is different from the religious approach taken by the Bajorans, who believe the wormhole is the legendary Celestial Temple inhabited by their "Prophets", whom they worship as gods. Her class is interrupted by one of Bajor's spiritual leaders, Vedek Winn (Louise Fletcher). Winn questions why Keiko doesn't teach Bajoran religion in her classroom. Afterwards, Keiko reports the incident to Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). When Sisko asks Winn about the dispute, she says there may be consequences if Keiko refuses to teach religion. Meanwhile, Miles discovers an important engineering tool is missing, but is distracted when he and Neela discover the remains of a Starfleet ensign. Outside the school, Winn and a group of Bajorans protest Keiko's teaching methods. Winn offers Keiko a solution—all she has to do is simply stop teaching about the wormhole. When Keiko refuses to accept Winn's proposal, Winn leads the Bajoran parents to take their children out of school. Sisko visits Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim) for advice on the problem. Bareil opposes Winn's views but he cannot support Sisko as he is attempting to become the next Kai, the leader of the Bajoran religion. Sisko returns to DS9 and asks for help from Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), but she also refuses to help. Meanwhile, Odo (René Auberjonois) and Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) finish investigating the remains of the Starfleet ensign Miles and Neela found earlier. They discover that the ensign had been murdered by a phaser when he became aware of someone tampering with the Runabout security controls. Later, an explosion occurs inside the empty school, destroying it. Sisko confronts Winn, blaming her actions for increasing the risk of violence on the station. Neela meets with Winn, revealing that the two had been working together. She informs Winn that her escape plan with the Runabout will no longer work. Winn tells Neela to continue with the plan, even if it means Neela must sacrifice herself. Bareil arrives at the station to help, and at the same time, Miles and Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) discover a hidden sub-program on the station's computer created by Neela. The program controls a timed delay of forcefields running from the promenade to the Runabouts. They alert Sisko who is nearby, just as Bareil and Winn begin to address a crowd of Bajorans on the promenade. Sisko searches the crowd just in time to see Neela raising her phaser at Bareil. Sisko tackles Neela to the ground and saves Bareil's life. Kira suggests that the assassination attempt was planned by Winn to secure her position as the new Kai, but Neela insists she was working alone. Kira later apologises to Sisko, and agrees with his earlier sentiment about Winn's actions. 

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After a long and boring day at work, Paul Hackett, a computer data entry worker, meets Marcy Franklin in a local cafe in New York City. Marcy tells him that she is living with a sculptor named Kiki Bridges, who makes and sells plaster-of-Paris paperweights resembling cream cheese bagels, and leaves him her number. Later in the night, after calling the number under the pretense of buying a paperweight, Paul takes a cab to the apartment. On the way, his $20 bill is blown out the window of the cab, leaving him with only some change, much to the incredulousness of the cab driver. At the apartment, Paul meets Kiki, who is working on a sculpture of a cowering and screaming man, and, throughout the visit, comes across several pieces of evidence that imply Marcy is disfigured from burns. As a result of this implication and strange behavior from Marcy, Paul abruptly slips out of the apartment. Paul attempts to go home by subway, but the fare has increased at the stroke of midnight. He goes to a bar where Julie, a waitress, immediately becomes enamored with him. At the bar, Paul learns that there have been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood. The bartender, Tom Schorr, offers to give Paul money for a subway token, but he is unable to open the cash register. They exchange keys so Paul can go to Tom's place to fetch the cash register key. Afterward, Paul spots two burglars, Neil and Pepe, with Kiki's man sculpture. After he confronts them, they flee, dropping the sculpture in the process. When Paul returns the sculpture to Kiki and Marcy's apartment, Kiki encourages him to apologize to Marcy. However, when he attempts to do so, he discovers Marcy has committed suicide; Kiki and a man named Horst have already left to go to a place called Club Berlin. Paul reports Marcy's death before remembering he was supposed to return Tom's keys. Paul attempts to return to Tom's bar, but it is locked out with a sign indicating that Tom will be back in half an hour. Paul meets Julie again on the street, and she invites him up to her apartment to wait for Tom, where Paul is unnerved by her own strange behavior. He then returns to Tom's bar only for Tom to get a call informing him of the death of Marcy, who was his girlfriend. Paul decides to return to Julie's apartment, where she begins to sketch his portrait while they talk. Ultimately, Paul rejects Julie's advances and leaves. In search of Kiki and Horst to inform them of Marcy's suicide, he goes to Club Berlin, where a group of punks attempt to shave his head into a mohawk. Narrowly escaping, Paul meets a woman named Gail, an ice cream truck driver who eventually mistakes him for the burglar plaguing the neighborhood, and she and a mob of local residents relentlessly pursue him. He meets a man who he asks for help, and the man assumes that he is looking for a gay hookup. Paul finds Tom again, but the mob (with the assistance of Julie, Gail, and Gail's Mister Softee truck) pursues Paul. Paul discovers that as payback for rejecting her, Julie used his image in a wanted poster that names him as the burglar. He ultimately seeks refuge back at Club Berlin. Paul uses his last quarter to play "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee and asks a woman named June to dance. Paul explains he is being pursued and June, also a sculptor who lives in the club's basement, offers to help him. She protects him by pouring plaster on him in order to disguise him as a sculpture while the mob searches the club for Paul. However, she will not let him out of the plaster even after the mob leaves, and it eventually hardens, trapping Paul in a position that resembles Kiki's sculpture. Neil and Pepe then break into Club Berlin and steal him, placing him in the back of their van. He falls from the van right outside the gate to his office building as the sun is rising. Paul brushes himself off and goes to his desk, bringing the film full circle. 

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Zahir is a person or an object that has the power to create an obsession in everyone who sees it, so that the affected person perceives less and less of reality and more and more of the Zahir, at first only while asleep, then at all times. In the story, a fictionalized version of Borges gets the Zahir in his change after paying for a drink in the form of a 20 cents coin. Borges then tells the reader about a train of thought focused on famous coins throughout history and legend, and the fact that a coin symbolizes our free will, since it can be turned into anything. These feverish thoughts keep him awake for a while. The next day, Borges decides to lose the coin. He goes to a faraway neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, while he carefully avoids looking at the street names and numbers, and manages to get rid of the Zahir by paying for another drink in an anonymous bar. The writer is unable to forget the coin, which he gradually becomes more obsessed with. He tries to look for a cure, and after some research, he finds a book that explains the history behind the Zahir, and that it manifested previously as a tiger, an astrolabe, the bottom of a well, and a vein in a marble column in a mosque. According to the myth, everything on earth has the propensity to be a Zahir, but "the Almighty does not allow more than one thing at a time to be it, since one alone can seduce multitudes." Borges tells us that soon he will be unable to perceive external reality, and he will have to be dressed and fed; but then he reflects that this fate does not worry him, since he will be oblivious to it. In idealistic philosophy, "to live and to dream are synonymous," and he will simply pass "from a very complex dream to a very simple dream." In a mixture of despair and resignation, he wonders: 

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The story is set in a post-disaster, dystopian future city, appearing to be somewhere in the United States, called the Urb, which has been disturbed by an earthquake known as "The Big Shake." The Urb is plagued by poverty, thieves, gang warfare, and the use of mind probes. Mind probes are analogous to hard drugs and enable users to temporarily escape their harsh lives through images like movies being played in their heads. Genetically improved people, called "proovs," (A play on "improved") live in a city called Eden, with a beautiful society, food, and water. Eden is separated from the Urb by the "Forbidden Zone," a deadly and dangerous minefield. The Urb is split up into sections called "latches." Each latch is controlled by a gang. Spaz is a teenage boy who cannot use mind probes because of his epilepsy and whose adoptive family has abandoned him because they feared the symptoms of his illness. Spaz runs errands for Billy Bizmo, the latch-boss (leader) of his gang, the "Bully Bangers," in a section of the Urb. On one of his errands, Spaz is sent to "rip-off" (steal from) Ryter, a very old man who possesses the lost arts of literacy and literature. Spaz soon meets Little Face, a five-year-old orphan who only says the word "chox," because he didn't learn how to speak and Spaz first gave him choxbars to eat. Spaz also meets Lanaya, a proov who charitably gives out "edibles" (food) to Spaz. At first, Spaz is very hostile towards Ryter, when Spaz arrives to "rip off" (steal) Ryter's meager possessions. Contrastingly, Ryter understands Spaz's situation and does his best to help him, offering no resistance. Eventually, Spaz learns that Bean, his beloved adoptive sister, is dying of leukemia. Ryter and Little Face accompany Spaz on a journey to find Bean. The trio starts by traveling through "The Pipe," a large, rusted-out water pipe that leads to other latches. In the next latch, the group sees everything burning and find Lanaya being attacked by very hungry people. She is rescued by Spaz and Ryter, and she joins them on their journey. Spaz and the company start traveling towards the latch where Bean lives. Eventually, through many dangers, toils, and snares, the story's heroes find a dying Bean. Lanaya and Ryter decide to take Bean to Eden, along with Spaz and Little Face. They ride along in Lanaya's takvee to her "contributors" (parents), Jin and Bree's home, which is a castle in Eden. At this point in the novel, it is brought to attention that Lanaya is a special proov who has been bred to eventually become a Master of Eden. To assume this title, she has rights and privileges that other proovs do not, called "learning opportunities". They take Bean to a proov hospital called the Primary and she is cured of her sickness using gene therapy. Ryter, Spaz and Little Face enjoy the paradise of Eden. Sometime later Ryter, Spaz and Bean are thrown out of Eden because the elders who rule over Eden decide they are unacceptable. Little Face is secretly adopted by Lanaya's contributors. The elders disregard Bean's high intelligence. They presume that someone from the Urb could never naturally be better than a proov in any way. Lanaya reveals to the elders that the mind probes, which come from Eden, cause too much damage to the people who use them in the Urb. As a result, all the mind probes throughout the Urb are deactivated, causing rioting and anarchy outside Eden. Bean is deposited at her home, and Ryter and Spaz are returned to their latch. Back at Spaz's home latch, Ryter is blamed for the deactivation of the mind probes and is wheeled by jetbikes which kills the old man. The stress caused by this assault triggered an epileptic seizure for Spaz. Before his death, Ryter tells Spaz that he is the last book in the universe. Billy Bizmo reveals to Spaz that he is his biological father and that his mother died at Spaz's birth. The story ends with Lanaya sending Spaz a message about things getting better in Eden and how she believes they can fix everything in time. Spaz takes on the name Ryter, continuing the original Ryter's work, writing The Last Book in the Universe. 

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The film opens with a soldier and nurse getting out of two 1940s-style cars in the middle of the night. The nurse runs up to the soldier and the camera switches to reveal this to be a scene from a film. Three Piggly Wiggly store workers in Fraziers Bottom, West Virginia—Rosalee, Cathy, and Pete—are watching, and as the nurse on screen asks for forgiveness and the soldier agrees, the women in the audience are moved to tears as Pete is clearly unimpressed. As the ladies wonder what Tad Hamilton—the star of the film—is doing at that moment, their prediction of praying is proven false as the scene cuts to Tad—described in the next scene by his agent—"drinking, driving, smoking, leering, and groping all at the same time". Tad's agent tells him that his hedonistic lifestyle is damaging his reputation and career opportunities. In order to improve his image and convince a director to cast him in an upcoming film, his agents establish a competition to win a date with Tad with proceeds going towards the charity Save the Children. An online advertisement for the competition is found by Rosalee. With the help of the Piggly Wiggly customers and the reluctant agreement of Pete, Cathy and Rosalee raise the $100 entrance money as Pete reveals to his superior that he will leave for Richmond to go to college after he has a discussion "with someone about going to Richmond with me". A news crew arrives outside Rosalee's house, signalling her success at winning a date with Tad Hamilton. Subsequently, a despondent Pete sees her off at the airport. Rosalee is awed by Los Angeles and becomes tongue-tied in Tad's presence; the date does not go well as Rosalee vomits in the limousine and Tad mentioning his love of animals—which Pete had warned was a signal of sexual intentions—rouses her suspicions. After seeing Tad's house, Rosalee requests to go back to the hotel and soon returns home, leaving Tad thoughtful. As Pete is about to tell Rosalee about moving to Richmond she is surprised—as much as Pete is disappointed—by Tad's sudden arrival to rekindle their relationship. Though Rosalee is still cynical of him as he uses a line from one of his films, his admission of not having "his priorities straight" seems to convince her of his good intentions. During a phone call with his agent, Tad insists that he wants to turn over a new leaf, and will not return to Los Angeles for a while. When he picks Rosalee up for a date he leaves a good impression on Rosalee's father, who had studied hard for the encounter. Pete tries to stop their date by reporting the pair for illegally parking. He tries to convince Rosalee that Tad is just using her. Despite all his efforts, Rosalee and Tad grow close over the next few days. In the bar, Pete corners Tad in a men's room stall. After conceding that Rosalee is in love with Tad, Pete tells Tad that Rosalee is more than a "wholesome small town girl", Rosalee is a wonderful person with "the kind of beauty a guy only sees once". He explains about her six smiles: one smile when something makes her laugh, one for polite laughter, one for when she makes plans, one when she makes fun of herself, one when she's uncomfortable, and one when she's talking about her friends. Pete makes Tad swear not to break her heart or he will tear Tad to pieces with his bare hands or "vicious rhetoric". When the pair is in Tad's hotel room, his agents appear and inform him that the director has decided to cast him in the film after all. Tad is overjoyed and convinces Rosalee to come to Los Angeles with him by using Pete's "six smiles" speech. After a rousing speech about great love from Angelica, a barmaid with a crush on him, Pete rushes to Rosalee's house and confesses his love for her but she is confused and resolves to still go to LA with Tad. On the plane when Tad fails to identify one of Rosalee's smiles, he confesses his lie and she asks to go home. She runs to Piggly Wiggly and Pete's house, then drives furiously towards Richmond to overtake her heartbroken friend. Similar to the opening scene, Rosalee and Pete get out of their cars and Pete, surrendering to a romantic song on the car radio, asks her to dance. 

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In AD 2989, a 17-year-old, newly qualified Amtrak pilot named Steve Brickman joins the Lady from Louisiana, a wagon-train in its first major assault on the Plainfolk Mutes. Thanks to the Mutes' deployment of sorcery, the wagon-train is defeated and forced to retreat. Brickman is taken prisoner by the Mutes but not killed, due to a prophetic vision of the clan's seer, Mr. Snow, which suggests Steve will be instrumental in the fulfilment of the Talisman Prophecy. This suggests a 'chosen one' called "Talisman" will arise to destroy the Federation and lead the Mutes to victorious domination of the world. Steve comes to admire and respect the Mutes; he falls in love with a "straight" (mutation-free) Mute woman named Clearwater and forges a bond of mutual respect with Mr. Snow's apprentice, Cadillac. Steve eventually escapes from the Mutes and returns to the Federation, but his account of his imprisonment and escape is deemed fantastical. Labelled a deserter, he is stripped of all rank and is publicly disgraced. Privately, Steve is recruited by the Federation's top-secret intelligence organisation, AMEXICO, and is sent on a new assignment to capture Cadillac, Clearwater, and Mr. Snow, who are deemed of interest to the Federation. Upon learning that Cadillac has used information from Steve to build a primitive glider and fly it to Ne-Issan as part of a weapons and intelligence exchange between the Mutes and Iron Masters, Steve decides to pursue the capture mission into Ne-Issan. During this mission, Steve's loyalties become further conflicted between his affinity with the Mutes and his birth allegiance to the Federation, and he begins a risky attempt to play both sides against the middle whilst he looks for a way to escape his enemies on both sides. Ultimately, the Talisman prophecy is fulfilled, at great cost. 

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In this novel, Li Kao and Number Ten Ox are attending the execution of a notorious criminal (about whose capture the less said the better, according to the chronicler) when into the public square bounds a "vampire ghoul" who soon meets a fiery demise. Master Li is given the case by the "Celestial Master" who soon becomes a main suspect. The plot involves everything from a conspiracy involving fake tea to dog-brides, puppeteers to magic birdcages, assorted pre-Chinese demons and gods, and the hooded and ancient Eight Skilled Gentlemen. The plot also involves a subject rarely mentioned in fiction, the pre-Chinese aborigines and their gods. 

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The novel is set in the early 3800s and takes place almost entirely on the faraway oceanic planet of Thalassa. Thalassa has a small human population sent there by way of an embryonic seed pod, one of many sent out from Earth in an attempt to continue the human race before the Earth was destroyed. The story begins with an introduction to the native Thalassans - the marine biologist Brant, his partner Mirissa and her brother Kumar. They are typical examples of the Thalassan culture; quiet, stable, and free from religion and supernatural influence. Their peaceful existence comes to an end with the arrival of the Magellan, an interstellar spaceship from Earth containing one million colonists who have been put into cryonic suspension. In a series of descriptive passages, the events leading up to the race to save the human species are explained. Scientists in the 1960s discover that the neutrino emissions from the Sun - a result of the nuclear reactions that fuel the star - are far diminished from expected levels. At a secret session of the International Astronomical Union it is confirmed that the problem is not with the scientific equipment: the Sun is calculated to become a nova around the year AD 3600. Over a period of centuries humanity develops advanced technologies to send out seeding ships containing human and other mammalian embryos (and later on, simply stored DNA sequences), along with robot parents, to planets that are considered habitable. One such ship is sent to the far off ocean world of Thalassa and successfully establishes a small human colony in the year 3109. Sending live humans is ruled out due to the immense amount of fuel that a rocket-propelled spacecraft would have to carry to first accelerate to the speeds required to travel such great distances within an acceptable time, and then decelerate upon approaching the destination. This limitation is overcome however with the development of the Quantum Drive less than a hundred years before the Sun is set to become a nova. This scientific break-through allows the construction of a fleet of manned interstellar vehicles, including the Starship Magellan. The Magellan escapes the Earth three years before the Sun explodes, an event that is witnessed by the Magellan's crew. In the intervening years the colony on Thalassa loses contact with Earth due to the destruction of its communication abilities by a volcanic eruption 400 years after its founding. The giant radio dish is never repaired due to an ingrained tendency to procrastinate, a trait common among the Thalassans. The Thalassans are therefore unaware of later developments on Earth, including manned interstellar travel. The Earth assumes the destruction of the colony as well. Two hundred and fifty years after the end of Earth the Magellan arrives at Thalassa, the midpoint of a 550-year voyage to colonise the distant ice planet Sagan 2. Primarily the objective is to replenish the ship's mammoth ice shield that had prevented micrometeors from damaging it during its interstellar journey. Thalassa is the obvious choice for this operation, as 95% of the planet's surface is covered by water. However, it soon becomes apparent that the human colony is still present and flourishing. Aboard are several crew members, awakened by the ship to undertake the mission, and 900,000 sleeping passengers. Among the crew is Loren Lorenson, a young engineer, and Moses Kaldor, an eminent and wise counsellor. The arrival of the visitors from Earth is a monumental event for the easygoing Thalassans, who never expected to see or hear from any other human beings. To the crew of the Magellan it is a welcome surprise to meet the natives and sample the pleasures of a beautiful and hospitable planet. A tale of love and tragedy starts to develop as Loren and Mirissa quickly fall in love, a situation that demonstrates the different level of social mores between the two cultures. The Thalassans appear free from monogamy and sexual possessiveness, a situation that the lonely and troubled crew quickly find out. Due to this and other aspects of the Thalassans' way of life, and the duration of the stay on the planet to repair the ship's ice shield, a small contingent of the crew quickly becomes disenchanted with the original objective of the mission, leading to a threat of mutiny. A more gentle and parental relationship also develops between Mirissa and Moses, a man deeply affected by the destruction of Earth and the loss of his wife. Moses soon provides Mirissa an insight into the culture and ways of Earth lost to the Thalassans, including the concepts of war and religion, concepts alien to the gentle Thalassans. During the course of the stay, and due to the construction of a massive plant for freezing the huge ice blocks for the shield, the Terrans and the Thalassans become aware of the existence of a potentially intelligent sea creature living in the depths of the Thalassan oceans. The "scorps" are similar to the sea scorpions of Earth, only much larger. It soon becomes evident that the scorps are responsible for the theft of metals and wire from several Thalassan underwater projects, including a fish trapping tool being developed by Brant. The intelligence of these creatures is questioned by most, but Moses believes they may have the potential for developing into a future intelligent species. Several unforeseen events occur that shatter the dream of idyllic life of Thalassa, and also remind the crew and the Thalassans that the visitors must soon continue their prime mission, and leave the Thalassans to their destiny. The story concludes with an air of tragedy and hope, as the relationship between Brant and Mirissa and Loren concludes; the transient nature and ultimate futility of their love revealed. Mirissa chooses to conceive a child by Loren, but a change in scheduling of the mission brought about by the threat of mutiny by the crew means he will never see his son. Brant accepts the child as his own. The dissatisfied elements of the crew are left on Thalassa while the rest leave on the last leg of their journey. Loren witnesses the life of Mirissa and his child after awakening on Sagan 2, three hundred years after their deaths. 

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The masked Crimson Ghost is determined to steal the Cyclotrode X, a device designed to repel atomic bomb attacks and that can disable electrical devices. Its inventor, university professor Dr. Chambers, demonstrates its powers at a faculty meeting by having it detect and fell a model airplane. After the meeting, two of the Ghost's henchmen attempt to steal the device, but Chambers destroys it to prevent them from doing so. Criminologist Duncan Richards, a colleague of Chambers, arrives and fights the henchmen. One of them, Ashe, escapes, and the other is killed when a collar around his neck is removed. Chambers informs his fellow professors—Richards, Anderson, Van Wyck, Maxwell, and Parker—that a duplicate Cyclotrode is located in a bonded warehouse. Chambers finds himself in the mansion hideout of the Ghost, who explains to Chambers that he is one of his fellow professors, and forces Chambers to wear a collar that will compel him to do his will. The Ghost notes that his collars are designed to kill the wearer if they are removed by anyone other than him. Chambers, under the Ghost's control, retrieves the duplicate Cyclotrode from the warehouse. Richards pursues them by car. The Ghost commands Chambers to use the Cyclotrode to impede Richards' car, and Richards narrowly avoids being sent hurtling off a cliff. Back in his mansion hideout, the Ghost relieves Chambers of his influence and tells him to make a larger, more powerful Cyclotrode that could cripple entire cities. Instead, Chambers builds a death ray and sets it as a trap. Richards finds his way to the lair and almost steps into the path of the death ray; Chambers leaps forward to stop him and is killed by the weapon. Upon learning of Chambers' death, the Ghost decides to build a larger Cyclotrode himself. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal heavy water—a compound integral to the Cyclotrode's operation—and a truckload of refined uranium—an ingredient he would need to make heavy water himself—the Ghost has his henchmen capture Diana, a secretary who has been assisting Richards in his efforts to combat them. The Ghost places a control collar on her, and she returns to the university. Richards notices the collar around her neck, and attempts to remove it with the help of a doctor and a nurse. Richards is able to remove the collar without killing Diana, and discovers that the doctor who is present is actually Ashe in disguise. Ashe manages to escape, and flees by car to the Ghost's mountain hideout. There, in a laboratory, scientist Bain has devised a way to make heavy water without uranium. Richards tracks them down to the hideout, and a fight ensues. A fire breaks out, and the Ghost and Ashe escape with a supply of heavy water. At the next faculty meeting, Richards announces that the wreckage of the Ghost's laboratory equipment has been hauled to a warehouse and will be checked for fingerprints. Richards reveals to Diana that he does not actually intend for the wreckage to be checked for fingerprints, and that instead, his goal is to lure the Ghost to the warehouse. At the warehouse, Richards and Diana find Professor Van Wyck, and assume him to be the Ghost. However, the real Ghost arrives, and a brawl ensues. Van Wyck is killed when the Ghost shoots the windshield of a truck, sending the vehicle into the ocean. With Professor Anderson having been killed by a control collar, and Van Wyck now dead, Richards determines that either Maxwell or Parker must be the Ghost. Richards and Diana use a dog to track Ashe to the Ghost's mansion hideout. Richards enters the mansion, where the Ghost and his henchmen have successfully constructed a larger Cyclotrode. Richards shoots the device with his gun, and manages to unmask the Ghost outside. Back at the university, the Crimson Ghost—whose identity is revealed as Professor Parker—is taken away by police. 

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In Story mode, the player chooses one of four careers (United Earth League military, Mars Consortium militia, Marauder Pirate Clan, mercenary) and follows Terminus's single-player storyline, set in the year 2197. In 2000, Terminus was unusual among RPGs in that the player's actions can affect the ending of the storyline. Failing a mission, for example, may lead to a different ending than would have occurred if the mission had succeeded. One unique feature of Terminus is the story would progress with or without the player. The player could begin the game in story mode, then go off and do something else and the story missions/battles would still take place, reaching an outcome depending on which side eventually wins. In Free mode, the player chooses a career and does the same as in Story mode, except there will be no storyline missions. In Gauntlet mode, the player outfits a ship with near-infinite money at their disposal, and faces several waves of attackers, with the object of staying alive for as long as possible. 

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Once again, it details the involvement of two children, Colin and Susan, with the world of myth and magic. This time the focus is on the potential of the older, wilder forms of magic and myth cycle to create both creative and destructive forces on the world. To ease the surrender of the Weirdstone in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Susan was given a magical bracelet by Angharad Goldenhand. It is the donning of this bracelet which has launched Susan unwittingly on a destiny connected with the cycles of the moon and hence the older wilder powers of the world. The Moon of Gomrath begins when the elves (lios-alfar) borrow the bracelet, with her consent, to see if its power can be directed by them to battle an unknown evil power in their own lands in Sinadon. However while unprotected by the bracelet, Susan is possessed by the Brollachan, an ancient evil released after an old pit is broken open during building work. The wizard Cadellin, guardian of the sleeping knights in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, cannot restore Susan after the Brollachan has been driven out of her body; instead perceiving that her spirit has been driven to another spiritual dimension, unreachable with ordinary means. It is Colin's true-hearted heroic love and need for his sister which provides the answer; as he responds to the older powers of the world. He therefore comes to seek the Mothan at moonrise. The Mothan is a mythical plant which grows on the Old Straight Track. This is a motif inspired by the book named The Old Straight Track. It is part of the Old Magic, in contrast to Cadellin's High Magic. Susan is dramatically restored to her own body. However her sojourn to other levels of existence has sensitised her to the powers with which she and her brother have been coming to associate and the story takes a new dramatic turn. On walking home across the Edge on dusk, they are inspired to build a fire to keep warm, Susan almost manically so. This fire includes rowan and pine which unintendedly act as a wendfire, which on this night of the year has the power to call ancient spirits from their mounds. Colin and Susan release the Wild Hunt, which return several times during the course of the novel. While they are trying to undo what they have done, the Morrigan captures Colin and imprisons him in Errwood Hall, which her magic restores into a building, which except in moonlight teleports into a lightless magic realm. This sets up the denouement, a pitched battle between the forces of the Morrigan (goblin-like bodachs and wildcat palugs) and Susan's allies (the lios-alfar, the dwarf Uthecar, and man Albanac), both willing and unwilling. Although Colin is rescued, Albanac is killed. When the elves withdraw their support as a lost cause, the Morrigan finally releases the Brollachan, focusing it on Susan to destroy her growing potential as a force for good. It is the other gift from Angharad Goldenhand which saves the day and the Old Magic is set free forever. 

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In Nazareth, Santa Claus runs away from children as gifts fall from his basket. He's been stabbed and leans against a tree. Neighbors bicker over small stuff. A Palestinian couple meets in a car. More bickering neighbors. A tourist asks an Israeli policeman for directions. Unable to help her himself, the policeman brings out a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner from the back of his van. The Palestinian tells her three different possible routes. The couple is in the car again. The man (E.S.) blows up a red balloon with the face of Yasser Arafat drawn on it. He releases it near an Israeli checkpoint. An Israeli soldier is about to shoot it down but his comrade stops him. In the confusion, the couple are able to drive through the checkpoint together. The balloon floats across Jerusalem, eventually settling against the Dome of the Rock. At night, the couple again in a car. The next morning, five Israeli men practice an elaborate sequence of dance-like moves. Armed with guns, they repeatedly fire at targets painted like a Palestinian woman under the direction of a choreographer-officer. When one of the targets fails to fall to the ground, a real Palestinian woman (dressed like the targets) appears. The officer instructs his men to fire at her. In a supernatural feat, she gathers their bullets in the air around her and rises from the ground. The bullets form a crown of thorns around her head until she lets them fall to the ground. She then uses crescent-adorned stars and rocks to kill all but the officer. A helicopter appears to reinforce the Israelis, which the woman also easily destroys. The dance choreographer watches helplessly and the woman disappears. The film ends with a man and his mother watching their dinner cook in a pressure cooker. 

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Matthew is an American exchange student who has come to Paris to study French. While at the Cinémathèque Française protesting the firing of Henri Langlois, he meets the free-spirited twins Théo and Isabelle. The three bond over a shared love of film. After dinner with their parents, Théo and Isabelle offer Matthew the chance to stay with them while their parents are on a trip. Matthew accepts, considering them his first French friends. Matthew becomes suspicious of their relationship after seeing them sleeping nude together; he soon discovers that they accept nudity and sexuality liberally. After Théo loses at a trivia game, Isabelle sentences him to masturbate to a Marlene Dietrich poster in front of them. After Matthew loses at another game, he is seduced to take Isabelle's virginity. The two then become lovers. Matthew begins to accept Théo and Isabelle's sexuality and his time living with them soon becomes idyllic. The three re-enact a famous scene from Bande à part by "breaking the world record for running through the Louvre", and Matthew and Théo engage in playful arguments about Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, as well as the subject of Maoism, which Théo fervently believes in. During this time Matthew begins to pursue a relationship with Isabelle, separate from Théo. Matthew and Isabelle leave the house and go on a regular date, which she has not experienced before. Théo retaliates by inviting a companion up to his room, upsetting Isabelle. She distances herself from both Théo and Matthew, only to find them next to each other on Théo's bed when an argument between the two turns erotic. She then surprises them with a makeshift fort and they fall asleep in each other's arms. One morning Théo and Isabelle's parents arrive home and find the trio naked in bed together. They are startled by what they find, but leave them be, departing after leaving a cheque. After they leave, Isabelle wakes up and discovers the cheque, realising that their parents have found them. Wordlessly, she attaches a hose to the gas outlet and lies back down with Théo and Matthew, attempting to commit suicide. After a few moments, however, they are woken by a brick being hurled through the window; they discover hundreds of students rioting in the streets. All three of them are overjoyed and proceed to join the protesters. Later on, Théo joins a small team of protesters preparing molotov cocktails. Matthew tries to stop Théo by kissing him, arguing against violence, but he is shunned by both Théo and Isabelle. As Matthew walks away through the chaos, Théo takes Isabelle's hand and hurls a molotov cocktail at a line of police. The police charge the crowd. 

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The game begins in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in 1936 and is presented in the manner of a science fiction serial of that time. The Leather Goddesses of Phobos are just finalizing their plans for the invasion of Earth. The player's character has been abducted by the Leather Goddesses for the final testing of the plan which will enslave all of humanity. Unless this nefarious plan is stopped, the Earth will be turned into these twisted vixens' pleasure dome. Despite the player's possible motives, this outcome is considered unfavorable. 

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For 1½ seasons from 1983 through 1984, Mama's Family ran on NBC. In the series' first episode, Thelma Harper lives with her uncomfortable, uptight spinster sister Fran (Rue McClanahan), a journalist for a local paper. Thelma's son Vinton (whose wife Mitzi had left him to become a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas) arrives to inform Thelma that he and his two children, Sonja and Buzz, have been evicted from their home and need a place to stay. Much to Fran's chagrin, Thelma allows the trio to move in. During the first season, Vinton forged a relationship with the Harpers' flirtatious next-door neighbor Naomi Oates, whom Thelma disliked, and soon married her. After selling Naomi's house and losing the money in a bad business deal, Naomi and Vint are forced to move into Thelma's basement, where they remain for most of the show's run. Also seen on a recurring basis were Thelma's two daughters: the snobbish Ellen (Betty White) and the ornery Eunice (Carol Burnett). Harvey Korman, who directed many of the earlier episodes, made featured appearances as Eunice's husband, Ed Higgins. (During the eleventh and final season of The Carol Burnett Show, the Ed Higgins character left Eunice and was written out of "The Family" skits.) 

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Since the original set had been destroyed, a new set had to be constructed. This led to some significant changes in set design details. Adjustments in the show's cast occurred as well, with only Vicki Lawrence (Thelma), Ken Berry (Vinton) and Dorothy Lyman (Naomi) returning as regulars from the original era of the sitcom. Vinton's kids from his first marriage, Buzz (Eric Brown) and Sonja (Karin Argoud), who were regulars in the show's first life, did not reprise their roles for the show's revival; their characters, though mentioned briefly in the first episode of the show's syndicated life, were never to be spoken of again. During the hiatus of the series, both Rue McClanahan and Betty White had gone on to star in the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls, rendering them unavailable to return. White, however, did return as Ellen for one episode in 1986 while Fran was killed off in the first episode of the revival. Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman, meanwhile, did not reprise their roles either, resulting in their characters (Eunice and Ed Higgins) being written out as having moved to Florida. To fill the void left by Mama's grandchildren, Allan Kayser was cast as Thelma's delinquent teenage grandson Bubba Higgins, Ed and Eunice's son. Bubba was ordered to live with his grandmother after being released from juvenile hall and placed on probation. Also added to the cast was Beverly Archer, who played the new character of Iola Boylen, the family's wildly quirky and prissy neighbor and Mama's best friend. Her catchphrase was calling out "Knock, knock!" in place of ringing the doorbell. 

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This drama explores the way that war tears families apart. This is a recurring theme in American Westerns, for example in The Searchers in which John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards' homecoming is marred by bitterness at the Confederate defeat in the American Civil War and turns him into a revenge obsessed vigilante. Hatred is set in a small village in the Ukraine, in which dying man Bulgya tries to reconcile his three estranged sons, who have been scattered by the Russian Civil War. The elder son, Stepan served with the White Army, the middle son Fyodor served with the Red Army while the youngest, Mitka left home with no allegiances and no idea where to go. Contrary to Bulgya's hopes, the reunion is a cool one. When Bulgya dies, the brothers are drawn together. They bury their father and promptly leave the village. But as soon as they pass the gates, a band of horsemen in Red Army uniforms burst into the village, killing the villagers, and burning their homes. The brothers set off in pursuit without any idea of who they are chasing. Are they really Red Army officers? Or are they White Guards in disguise? Eventually Stepan recognises a fellow soldier from the White Guards and realises his loyalties are divided. He tries to play both sides, first betraying his brothers to the White Guards, and then helping them to escape. Fyodor and Mitka take a White Colonel prisoner, and on his way from the estate, Stepan hears gunshots. Rushing off after them, he realises he has become a stranger to the Whites as well. 

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The Porters are a working-class family who live in Chiswick, London who at first seem normal enough. Bill is the sensible, level-headed mother who does the cooking and housework whilst running a catering business with her highly-sexed best friend Rona. Ben is the father, who is often just as immature as the children. He runs a heating repair business with his moody and sarcastic assistant Christine. Jenny is the typical teenage daughter, keen on boys, music, and vegetarianism, and David is the mischievous younger brother, who enjoys horror films, aliens, and annoying his older sister. However, the Porters' world is frequently upended by bizarre occurrences and bad luck. Whether it is dealing with flatulent dogs, a frozen body in a freezer in the front room, or even stumbling across a warehouse filled with Shirley Bassey's cast-off ballgowns, anything seems possible in the Porters' world. Traditionally Christmas episodes would feature characters collectively performing a musical number. 

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The show focused on three teenagers in their late teens, Ryan Steele, Kaitlin Star, and J.B. Reese, living in the fictional West Coast town of Cross World City, California. They regularly attended and were teachers at "Tao's Dojo," a karate studio. Ryan was the most focused martial artist; J.B. was the computer wizard; while Kaitlin was a photographer & budding reporter for the local newspaper, the Underground Voice Daily. One day, Ryan's search for his long-missing father led him and his two friends to a strange laboratory. Inside, a digitized head of Professor Horatio Hart (who is a friend of Ryan's father Tyler) explained the truth about his life's work of having developed extremely advanced virtual reality technology in secret. "VR" is a dimension existing alongside our own; within it lie mutants bent on conquering both worlds. The main ruler of these is a creature known as Grimlord, who, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, has a human identity as billionaire industrialist Karl Ziktor. As Karl Ziktor tries to overcome the barriers of the true reality to allow his armies easy passage from virtual world, the responsibility falls to Ryan, Kaitlin, and J.B. of defending the planet on both sides of the dimensional barrier. They have assistance in the form of armored bodies having incredible firepower. This included eventual additions to their arsenal, such as a Turbo Cycle, Techno Bazooka, VR Troopertron, VR Shoulder Cannon, VR Battlecruiser/Interceptop and a flying, laser-blasting Skybase. Other regular characters on the show included Zeb as Jeb, Ryan's hound dog who after an accident in Professor Hart's lab, was now capable of human speech; Woody Stocker, Kaitlin's wacky hat-loving boss at the Underground Voice Daily; Percy Rooney, the local mayor's nephew and Kaitlin's bumbling rival reporter; and Tao, the wise martial arts sensei who owns the dojo and a family friend of the Steele Family. Recurring villains include General Ivar, Colonel Icebot, Decimator, the Skugs, and more throughout. During the second season, the show changed format very slightly. Ryan's father Tyler was finally found and restored to normal. Then, he quickly left to help the government research further Virtual Reality based technology. With him came Ryan's new V.R. armor and an upgrade to his powers. Grimlord's base of operations switched from the virtual dungeon to a massive spacecraft, and added new Generals such as Oraclon, Despera, Doom Master and his Vixens. The Skugs now had the ability to become more powerful in the form of Ultra Skugs. 

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Jim Blandings, a bright account executive in the advertising business, lives with his wife Muriel and two daughters, Betsy and Joan, in a cramped New York apartment. Muriel secretly plans to knock out a wall and remodel their apartment for $7,000 ($ today). After rejecting this idea, Jim Blandings comes across an ad for new homes in Connecticut and they get excited about moving. Planning to purchase and "fix up" an old home, the couple contact a real estate agent, who uses them to unload "the old Hackett Place" in (fictional) Lansdale County, Connecticut. It is a leaning, dilapidated, nearly 200-year old farmhouse on some 35 acres where General Gates stopped to water his horses during the Revolutionary War. The Blandingses purchase the property for 5 times more than the going rate per acre for locals, provoking his friend/lawyer Bill Cole to chastise him for following his heart rather than his head. The old house, dating from the Revolutionary War-era, turns out to be structurally unsound and has to be torn down before the previous owner's mortgage is paid off. The Blandings hire architect Henry Simms to design and supervise the construction of the new home for $18,000 ($ today). From the original purchase to the completion of the new home, a long litany of unforeseen troubles and setbacks, including digging a well, beset the hapless Blandings and delayed their move in date. On top of all this, at work Jim is assigned the task of coming up with a slogan for "WHAM" Brand Ham, an advertising account that has destroyed the careers of previous account executives assigned to it. Jim also suspects that Muriel is cheating on him after Bill Cole slept alone in the house with Muriel one night due to a violent thunderstorm. With mounting pressure, skyrocketing expenses, and the encroaching deadline for his assignment, Jim starts to wonder why he wanted to live in the country. Bill observes that although he has been the voice of doom, pointing out all the ways they were being cheated, when he looks at what they have here, he realizes that some things "you do buy with your heart and not your head. Maybe those are the things that really count.” Gussie, a black maid working for the Blandings, provides Jim with the perfect WHAM slogan—"If you ain't eating WHAM, you ain't eating ham"—and saves his job. Gussie is rewarded by the Blandings with a $10 raise ($ today), and her likeness is used in the WHAM advertising campaign. The film ends with the family, with Bill, enjoying the beautiful front yard. Jim, who is reading the book Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, invites the audience to “Drop in and see us some time.” 

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Five centuries after the conclusion of Earthfall, there is only one original colonist from Harmony: Shedemei, who now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster (a device that links her to the Oversoul). After hundreds of years, the descendants of Nafai and Elemak have built cities and towns - yet never forgetting the enmity between the two brothers. After hundreds of years, the Oversoul still has not achieved its original purpose: to find the Keeper of Earth, the central intelligence that alone can repair the Oversoul's damaged counterpart at Harmony. But now, the Keeper has once again begun to spread its influence. Heeding the dreams below, Shedemei has decided to return to Earth. The last book in the Homecoming saga marks a departure from the style and storyline of the previous four. All of the characters from the previous novels (except Shedemei) are long dead. The central conflict between Nafai and Elemak is represented in their descendants, but takes a back seat in this book. The focus is on the struggles within the descendants of those who followed Nafai. The king of Darakemba (an empire founded by the Nafaris), his children, and his advisers, along with the high priest of Darakemba, his children, and his converts, provide the main actions in the story. 

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Jimmy Kilmartin is an ex-con living in Astoria in the New York City borough of Queens, trying to stay clean and raising a daughter with his wife Bev. They are both recovering alcoholics. Bev leaves Jimmy alone to go to an AA meeting. While she is gone, Jimmy is awakened by his cousin Ronnie who is in desperate need of a driver to help him move some stolen cars. Jimmy tries to eject Ronnie, knowing that he could go back to prison just for being seen with him. Ronnie's right ring finger is broken, and he confesses that if Jimmy does not help him move the cars, Little Junior Brown will kill him. Little Junior Brown is an asthmatic psychopath. Enraged that they are so behind schedule, he insists that Ronnie move the four trucks full of stolen cars in a caravan, instead of staggering them to avoid detection. The caravan draws the attention of the police, and when they arrive at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to unload the cars, the police arrive. During the arrests, Jimmy's passenger shoots at the police. The bullet goes through Jimmy's hand and just below the right eye of Detective Calvin Hart. The lawyer for the Brown crime family, Jack Gold, promises Jimmy that Bev will be taken care of if he takes the rap without naming his co-conspirators. Ronnie shorts Bev on her allowance, giving her only $150 of the $400 a week that the Browns intended for her. Bev agrees to work for Ronnie at his chop shop just south of Shea Stadium. On her first day, she witnesses Ronnie beating a man who tried to sell him a stolen car. She drinks a Rolling Rock, and goes with Ronnie to Baby Cakes, the strip club owned by the Browns. There Ronnie plys her with more alcohol and tries to take advantage of her, Big Junior and Little Junior are angered and instruct him to take her to her home but instead he brings her back to his house. Waking in his bed, Bev is horrified at her relapse and Ronnie’s advances, she rushes out of Ronnie's house and steals his car. She drives head-on into a semi-truck in the street and gets killed instantly. Given a supervised release for her funeral, Jimmy listens to Ronnie's lame explanation for why Bev died in his car. Bev's sister Rosie explains that she never returned home the night before her death. Convinced of Ronnie's complicity in Bev's death, Jimmy agrees to turn state's witness. He names all of the people involved in the Navy Yards fiasco, except Ronnie. When the cops arrest everyone but Ronnie, the Browns are convinced that he is the snitch. Little Junior Brown visits Ronnie's shop and proceeds to beat Ronnie to death in his office as retaliation. Several years pass, and the district attorney approaches Jimmy again about snitching on the Browns. Still in Sing Sing, Jimmy negotiates for a pardon and a job that he would enjoy. He and Rosie get married, but he hides his informant duties from her. Det. Hart meets with Jimmy at a Chinese restaurant and informs him that his target is actually a drug dealer named Omar, who gets weapons and cars from Little Junior Brown. Jimmy dons a wire and returns to work for the Browns with an initial assignment of boosting cars. After their rounds, Jimmy's crew heads to Baby Cakes where he sees Little Junior for the first time in years. Little Junior is distraught over the recent death of his father, and he offers Jimmy his condolences over Bev's death. Little Junior takes Jimmy to a meeting with Omar. Jimmy is unable to sustain the charade with Rosie. Eventually, Little Junior takes Jimmy to another meeting with Omar, whom he kills. Later, Omar's crew throws Jimmy into a car and drives him to a meeting, where he learns that Omar was an undercover DEA agent. The DA and the DEA use Jimmy's tape of the killing to arrest Little Junior. When Little Junior is out on bail, he abducts Jimmy's daughter to send him a message. He eventually finds his daughter in the woods, with the letters B.A.D. (Balls, Attitude, Direction; an acronym Little Junior gives himself in a private moment with Jimmy) written on her forehead in blood. Realizing that his family is not safe anymore, Jimmy returns to the city and confronts Little Junior at gunpoint at Baby Cakes. A fight ensues with Little Junior and Jimmy, which results in Little Junior being arrested by Det. Hart (after learning that Jimmy was wired). Jimmy uses a tape of the DA's corrupt threats as leverage to escape the situation. The film ends with Jimmy getting into a stolen Explorer that Little Junior gave him, and he leaves the city with Rosie and his daughter. 

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On Christmas Eve, down-on-his-luck ex-convict Nick Bianco (Mature) and his three cohorts rob a jewelry store. Before they can exit the building, however, the injured proprietor sets off his alarm. While attempting to escape, Nick assaults a police officer but is wounded and arrested. Assistant District Attorney Louis D'Angelo (Donlevy) tries to persuade Nick to name his accomplices in exchange for a light sentence. Confident that his partners in crime and his lawyer, Earl Howser, will look after his wife and two young daughters while he is incarcerated, Nick refuses and is given a 20-year sentence. Three years later, at Sing Sing Prison, after his wife does not write for 3 months, Nick discovers that she has committed suicide. Nick is visited in prison by Nettie Cavallo (Gray), a young woman who used to babysit his girls. She tells him that his daughters have been sent to an orphanage and reveals that his wife was raped by Pete Rizzo, one of his accomplices. Nick decides to tell all to D'Angelo but, because so much time has elapsed, D'Angelo cannot use Nick's information about the jewelry store robbery to reduce his sentence. In exchange for being able to see his children, he spills about the job. D'Angelo then decides to keep Nick in the city jail and use him as an informant. He keeps Nick clean in the eyes of other shady characters and Howser (who acts on behalf of his criminal clients as a go-between for a fence) by making it seem Nick is being charged with a previous, unsolved robbery he pulled off with Rizzo. D'Angelo then instructs Nick to imply to the lawyer that Rizzo squealed about this job. Howser arranges for Tommy Udo (Widmark), a psychopathic killer who did time with Bianco, to take care of Rizzo. When Udo shows up at Rizzo's tenement, only the criminal's wheelchair- bound mother (Mildred Dunnock) is present; she tells Udo that her son is out but will return that evening. Udo examines the apartment and determines that Rizzo has probably left town. Udo binds Mrs. Rizzo to her wheelchair with an electrical cord and pushes her down a flight of stairs, killing her. Soon after, Nick is freed on parole at D'Angelo's behest, and visits Nettie, pledging his love to her. But in order to remain out, Nick must continue his work with the D'Angelo. He arranges a "chance" meeting with Udo and pretends to be friendly as an old prison pal from Sing Sing. Udo takes Nick to a couple of clubs, including one at which narcotics are being smoked. Nick reports back to D'Angelo, who is satisfied that he has enough to indict Udo and get a conviction. D'Angelo then releases Nick from further work. Nick starts a new life in Astoria, Queens, with his wife, Nettie, and the children. When Udo's trial begins, D'Angelo summons Nick to let him know that his testimony is required. Despite him taking the stand, though, Udo is acquitted. Certain that Udo will seek revenge, Nick sends Nettie and the girls to the country. He then goes to deal with Udo and finds him at Luigi's restaurant in East Harlem. Inside, Udo threatens Nettie and the girls, whereupon Nick reminds him that during their night out, Udo gave Nick incriminating information about himself. Udo leaves to wait in his sedan out front, which Nick notices. He telephones and summons D'Angelo to come with police to the restaurant in exactly two minutes, then goes outside. Udo shoots Nick and is quickly surrounded by police, shot, and arrested. Though badly wounded, Nick also survives; he and Nettie look forward to a happy, peaceful life together. 

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Jonathan Gates is a student at UCLA in the early 1960s, where he begins his love affair with film at The Classic, a rundown independent movie theatre. He begins a romance with the theatre's owner Clarissa "Clare" Swann, who tutors him extensively in the study of film history over the course of their relationship. It is through Clare's pursuit of classic films to show at the theater that Gates stumbles upon the work of Max Castle, a German film director whose work uses subliminal imagery and unorthodox symbolism to achieve a powerful effect over the viewer. Gradually, Gates rises through the academic ranks to achieve a professorial chair, becoming most respected as the rediscoverer and champion of Castle's work. Through Gates' extensive research and travels through Europe, the reader learns of Castle's considerable influence over the great films of his time culminating in an uncredited collaboration with Orson Welles to make the acclaimed movie Citizen Kane, followed by a failed attempt to adapt Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness to the silver screen. Also revealed, however, are Castle's shadowy connections with a religious group known as the Orphans of the Storm, as well as his disappearance in 1941 after being lost at sea and presumed dead in a Nazi u-boat attack during a trip to Europe. Clare, meanwhile, has become a respected New York film critic, entrusting the Classic theatre to her one-time projectionist Don Sharkey, who stops showing artful films in favor of shallow entertainment for a new generation of moviegoers. Among the up-and-coming directors Sharkey showcases is 18-year-old Simon Dunkle, creator of ultra-low budget exploitation films of unprecedented gore and remarkable popularity among young people. Gates learns Dunkle belongs to the same religious sect as Max Castle. Gates begins to investigate the Orphans, despite their own attempts to stifle his research and the adverse effect that the constant viewing of Orphan-made films is having on his personality. He learns that the Orphans are Gnostic dualists, living in secrecy since the Catholic persecutions of Catharism in the Middle Ages. The Orphans have pioneered revolutionary film techniques, which they subtly employ throughout the film industry by training several generations of film editors. Gates begins to suspect that the Orphans are using their extensive influence in the film industry to subliminally promote their religion while they enact their plans to bring about the Apocalypse in the year 2014 via biological terrorism. Eventually, Gates turns to his former lover Clare for help. She introduces him to a Father Angelotti. A defrocked Dominican priest, Angelotti was a member of Occulus Dei, a secretive group established by the Catholic Church to investigate and combat the surviving Cathars. Angelotti persuades Gates to 'infiltrate' the Orphans' church, so as to obtain the conclusive evidence that will allow Gates to publish what he has discovered. The Orphans put him on a private plane, ostensibly to meet the elders of their faith. En route, they drug his coffee and he later awakes, imprisoned on a small tropical island in the Indian Ocean. Gates realizes that Angelotti was a double agent, a loyal Cathar who had infiltrated the Catholic church. On the island Gates is fed and tended by a man and woman who seem to not speak English and are restocked by occasional supply boats, but otherwise is trapped without hope of escape. Living in a nearby hut is none other than Max Castle himself, more than 30 years after his disappearance at the hands of the Cathar cultists. Gates and the film director he once idolised use scraps and castoffs from a waste-heap of old celluloid to splice together one final film, while they wait for Armageddon to come. 

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The children of Wetchik are ready to board the starship Basilica and embark on their journey from the planet Harmony back to the origin of humanity: Earth. However, the rivalry between Nafai and Elemak promises the journey will be anything but peaceful. Each faction already has hidden plans to prematurely awaken from the long hibernation, to have the upper hand when the landing occurs. The children become pawns in their parents' power struggle - valuable potential adults that can strengthen each faction. But the Oversoul is ultimately in control, having uploaded a copy of itself into Basilica's central computer, so that it can monitor the ship at all times. After landing on Earth, the fragile peace wrought on board is merely a mask for the turmoils of passions that boil beneath. Not only do the colonists have to deal with the split, there are also the mysteriously symbiotic alien races that have evolved on Earth since humanity's departure. The quest to understand the Angels (giant bats) and the Diggers (giant rats) that were foreshadowed in the dreams is not an easy one. The focus throughout the course of this novel begins to drift away from the original generation of characters in order to delineate the passage of time. The factions that developed among the original generation have now spread to their children, through no fault of the children themselves. Nafai finds himself and his "Nafari" living and working primarily amongst the angel people, whereas the "Elemaki" associate much more closely with the diggers. It is this dissociation that eventually breaks nearly all the bonds—literally, for Hushidh and Cheveya—between Nafai and his older brother, Elemak. As Elemak's rage and hatred for Nafai grow, he ingrains such feelings into his family and the digger people, laying the foundation for war. After the death of Volemak the Nafari migrate northwards away from the landing site to found a new nation. 

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Richard Haywood (Ryan Gosling) and Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt) are high school classmates; Richard is wealthy and popular, while Justin is a brilliant introvert. After months of planning a "perfect crime," they abduct a woman at random, strangle her, and plant evidence implicating Richard's marijuana dealer, janitor Ray Feathers. Detective Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock) and her new partner Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin) investigate. Cassie has sex with Sam early on as she has with previous partners, but won't let him see her chest, and curtly sends him home afterward. Footprints at the crime scene lead to Richard, and vomit nearby implicates Justin. Both have alibis, and deny knowing each other, but Cassie is convinced that Richard is the murderer and Justin is involved. Sam criticizes her refusal to consider other suspects, as most of the physical evidence points away from the two boys. Cassie's boss, Captain Rod Cody, and her ex, Assistant D.A. Al Swanson, fearing Richard's influential parents, take Cassie off the case. Sam, following the planted evidence, tracks down Ray. When Ray is found dead by Richard who makes it look like a suicide, the woman's murder appears solved; but Sam decides that Cassie may be right, and continues the investigation. Justin, who has a crush on classmate Lisa Mills, works up the courage to ask her out. A jealous Richard seduces Lisa, then gives Justin a video clip of the two having sex. Justin is enraged, but regains control, knowing Sam is still watching them. Cassie begins receiving calls from her ex-husband Carl Hudson, who went to prison for stabbing her in the chest 17 times. His parole hearing is coming up, and he wants her to speak on his behalf. Cassie confides to Sam that although she became a cop to prove to herself that she wasn't a victim, she is terrified at the prospect of seeing Carl again. She also confesses that Richard reminds her of Carl, which is why she is convinced of Richard's guilt, and obsessed with proving it. Sam and Cassie bring Richard and Justin in for separate interrogations, trying to induce each to implicate the other, but neither will talk, and both are released. At the victim's home, Cassie determines how the boys carried out the abduction and altered the physical evidence. Justin and Richard, knowing that Cassie is closing in on them, flee to an abandoned house, where Richard produces two revolvers and proposes a mutual suicide. On the count of three, Justin shoots into the air, but Richard does not. Justin demands to see Richard's gun, which is unloaded. As a furious Justin is about to shoot Richard, Cassie arrives. Richard grabs Justin's gun and shoots at Cassie, wounding Justin instead. Cassie gives chase, but Richard strangles her on a rickety balcony jutting out over a cliff. Overcoming Carl's abuse to her, Cassie knocks Richard off the balcony to his death. Justin grabs Cassie, who is hanging on the edge of the balcony, and pulls her back into the house. Cassie assures Justin that she will intercede on his behalf, since he was an innocent dupe, manipulated by the ruthless Richard. Then she notices a mark on her neck caused by Richard's large ring, and realizes that the dead woman's neck did not have a similar mark. Confronted with the evidence, Justin confesses that he strangled the victim, proving his "courage" to Richard, and is arrested. Cassie faces her fears and enters the courtroom to testify at Carl's parole hearing. The bailiff calls her to the stand by her legal name: Jessica Marie Hudson. 

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Sonny Hooper (Burt Reynolds) is the stunt coordinator on an action film, The Spy Who Laughed at Danger, directed by Roger Deal (Robert Klein) and starring Adam West (playing himself). Sonny's antics and wisecracks are a trial for the egotistical director and his officious but cowardly assistant, Tony (Alfie Wise). Years of numerous "gags" and his use of alcohol and painkillers are beginning to take their toll. Sonny lives with his girlfriend Gwen Doyle (Sally Field) whose father Jocko (Brian Keith) is a retired stuntman. Sonny is coerced by a friend into performing at a charity show, where he meets Delmore "Ski" Shidski (Jan-Michael Vincent), a newcomer who makes a spectacular entrance. They become friends after a barroom brawl, and Sonny invites Ski to work with him on the film. They begin a friendly rivalry in which the dangerous stunts escalate. After a freefall from a record 224 feet, Sonny quietly consults with his doctor, who warns him that one more bad fall could render him quadriplegic. Roger decides to change the film's ending, adding a climactic earthquake complete with many explosions, fires and car crashes. Sonny and Ski would race through the carnage to a nearby gorge, where the bridge explodes before they can cross it. Roger suggests they rappel down one side of the gorge and up the other to safety, but Ski proposes jumping a car over the gorge, with Hooper adding that a rocket car can make the 335-foot jump. Roger loves the idea, ignoring the warnings that Sonny and Ski might not survive the landing even if the car lands on its wheels. Max Berns, the movie's producer and a longtime friend of Sonny's, warns Roger that the film is already over budget and they can't afford the $100,000 Hooper wants to perform the rocket car jump. Roger tells Max he wants the rocket car ending and to make cuts elsewhere. Tony is sent to talk Hooper down from his high price, but fails. Meanwhile, Jocko suffers a stroke, but denies the gravity of his condition. Seeing Jocko in the hospital motivates Sonny to promise Gwen that he will quit the business after the film wraps. Then, Sonny's assistant and best friend Cully (James Best) reveals the rocket car stunt and Sonny's secret visit to his doctor to a horrified Gwen. Sonny later tells Roger that he is backing out of the gag, but Max convinces him to reconsider, as no qualified stuntman is available, or willing, to replace him and Ski cannot do it alone. Having no other choice, and even after Gwen threatens to leave him, Sonny goes through with the gag. Sonny and Ski perform the first part of the gag perfectly. As they arrive at the now-demolished bridge, they find that the rocket pressure is below the minimum needed to make the jump, but they attempt it anyway. The rocket car clears the gorge, but overshoots the prepared landing area and lands hard on the far side. Ski emerges from the car on his own, but the impact is more of a shock to Sonny's system. Gwen tearfully pushes her way through the gathering crowd as the chief engineer extracts Sonny from the car. Sonny slowly comes out of his daze and takes Gwen in his arms. As Sonny, Ski, Gwen, Cully and Jocko view the bridge lying in the river and the gorge the rocket car had jumped, Roger comes up to them and tries to apologize for all the grief he gave him during filming, but he comes off as trying to justify himself. Sonny's response is to knock Roger out with a single punch. He, Gwen, Ski, Cully and Jocko then triumphantly walk off the set. 

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The play begins with a strange scene—a large net has been spread over a house, the entry is barricaded and two slaves, Xanthias and Sosias, are sleeping in the street outside. A third man is positioned at the top of an exterior wall with a view into the inner courtyard but he too is asleep. The two slaves wake and we learn from their banter that they are keeping guard over a "monster." The man asleep above them is their master and the monster is his father—he has an unusual disease. Xanthias and Sosias challenge the audience to guess the nature of the disease. Addictions to gambling, drink and good times are suggested but they are all wrong—the father is addicted to the law court: he is a phileliastes () or a "trialophile." The man's name is Philocleon (which suggests that he might be addicted to Cleon), and his son's name is the very opposite of this—Bdelycleon. The symptoms of the old man's addiction include irregular sleep, obsessional thinking, paranoia, poor hygiene and hoarding.The Wasps lines 83–135 Counselling, medical treatment and travel have all failed to solve the problem, and now his son has turned the house into a prison to keep the old man away from the law courts. Bdelycleon wakes and he shouts to the two slaves to be on their guard—his father is moving about. He tells them to watch the drains, for the old man can move like a mouse, but Philocleon surprises them all by emerging instead from the chimney disguised as smoke. Bdelycleon is luckily on hand to push him back inside. Other attempts at escape are also barely defeated. The household settles down for some more sleep and then the Chorus arrives—old jurors who move warily through the muddy roads and are escorted by boys with lamps through the dark. Learning of their old comrade's imprisonment, they leap to his defense and swarm around Bdelycleon and his slaves like wasps. At the end of this fray, Philocleon is still barely in his son's custody and both sides are willing to settle the issue peacefully through debate. The debate between the Philocleon and Bdelycleon focuses on the advantages that the old man personally derives from voluntary jury service. Philocleon says he enjoys the flattering attentions of rich and powerful men who appeal to him for a favourable verdict, he enjoys the freedom to interpret the law as he pleases since his decisions are not subject to review, and his juror's pay gives him independence and authority within his own household. Bdelycleon responds to these points with the argument that jurors are in fact subject to the demands of petty officials and they get paid less than they deserve—revenues from the empire go mostly into the private treasuries of men like Cleon. These arguments have a paralysing effect on Philocleon. The chorus is won over. Philocleon refuses to give up his old ways, so Bdelycleon offers to turn the house into a courtroom and to pay him a juror's fee to judge domestic disputes. Philocleon agrees, and a case is soon brought before him—a dispute between the household dogs. One dog (who looks like Cleon) accuses the other dog (who looks like Laches) of stealing a Sicilian cheese and not sharing it. Witnesses for the defense include a bowl, a pestle, a cheese-grater, a brazier and a pot. As these are unable to speak, Bdelycleon says a few words for them on behalf of the accused. A group of puppies (the children of the accused) is ushered in to soften the heart of the old juror with their plaintive cries. Philocleon is not softened, but his son easily fools him into putting his vote into the urn for acquittal. The old juror is deeply shocked by the outcome of the trial—he is used to convictions—but his son promises him a good time and they exit the stage to prepare for some entertainment. While the actors are offstage, the Chorus addresses the audience in a conventional parabasis. It praises the author for standing up to monsters like Cleon and it chastises the audience for its failure to appreciate the merits of the author's previous play (The Clouds). It praises the older generation, evokes memories of the victory at Marathon, and bitterly deplores the gobbling up of imperial revenues by unworthy men. Father and son then return to the stage, now arguing with each other over the old man's choice of attire. He is addicted to his old juryman's cloak and his old shoes and he is suspicious of the fancy woollen garment and the fashionable Spartan footwear that Bdelycleon wants him to wear that evening to a sophisticated dinner party. The fancy clothes are forced upon him, and he is instructed in the kind of manners and conversation that the other guests will expect of him. At the party, Philocleon declares his reluctance to drink any wine—it causes trouble, he says—but Bdelycleon assures him that sophisticated men of the world can easily talk their way out of trouble, and so they depart optimistically for the evening's entertainment. There is then a second parabasis (see Note at end of this section), in which the Chorus touches briefly on a conflict between Cleon and the author, after which a household slave arrives with news for the audience about the old man's appalling behaviour at the dinner party: Philocleon has got himself abusively drunk, he has insulted all his son's fashionable friends, and now he is assaulting anyone he meets on the way home. The slave departs as Philocleon arrives, now with aggrieved victims on his heels and a pretty flute girl on his arm. Bdelycleon appears moments later and angrily remonstrates with his father for kidnapping the flute girl from the party. Philocleon pretends that she is in fact a torch. His son isn't fooled and he tries to take the girl back to the party by force but his father knocks him down. Other people with grievances against Philocleon continue to arrive, demanding compensation and threatening legal action. He makes an ironic attempt to talk his way out of trouble like a sophisticated man of the world, but it inflames the situation further. Finally, his alarmed son drags him indoors. The Chorus sings briefly about how difficult it is for men to change their habits and it commends the son for filial devotion, after which the entire cast returns to the stage for some spirited dancing by Philocleon in a contest with the sons of Carcinus. Note: Some editors (such as Barrett) exchange the second parabasis (lines 1265–91) with the song (lines 1450–73) in which Bdelycleon is commended for filial devotion. 

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Following the events of Ring, the body of Ryūji Takayama, former husband of Reiko Asakawa and father of Yōichi Asakawa, is examined by his friend and rival, pathologist Mitsuo Andō. After he finds a cryptic note in Takayama's stomach, Reiko and Yōichi also turn up dead. Andō soon learns of a mysterious cursed videotape, haunted by the spirit of a murdered young woman. Rumor has it that anyone who watches the video will die exactly one week later. Despondent over the death of his own child, and believing that he is being guided by his rival's ghost, Andō decides to see the video for himself. After watching the tape, strange things begin to happen around him, and he soon discovers that the tape's restless spirit has different plans in store for him. With the help of Takayama's student, Mai Takano, Andō finds out more about Ryūji's past as well as the mysterious young woman, Sadako Yamamura. Searching for the truth about why Ryūji and Yōichi died from the virus while Reiko did not leads him to her boss Yoshino. Yoshino lets Andō in on a secret: he has the wife's diary. She and Ryūji had been researching the cursed videotape. While Reiko had broken the curse, Ryūji died a week after watching the tape. Reiko believed that creating a copy would break the curse, but Yōichi died a week after watching the tape, just as his father had. Yoshino shows Andō both the tape and the diary. When Andō tells Mai Takano what he has done, she is shocked and cannot understand why, since she felt from the start that it was the video that killed Takayama and his family. As they are talking, Yoshino calls Andō. He admits that he wishes that he had never been involved in Reiko's business. Andō believes that Yoshino had watched the video, but he denies it, saying that he was too scared to. However, Yoshino still dies. Andō decides to destroy the videotapes and make sure that he will be the video's last victim. He then confides in Mai about his son's death, and they end up sleeping together. Andō asks Mai if she will be there with him when he dies, but Mai tells him that she is too scared. He understands and decides to try to find out more about the virus that killed Takayama and his son. He discovers that the virus that killed Yoshino was different from the one that killed the father and son. Andō asks for tests to be run on him. Meanwhile, Mai Takano goes missing and Andō apparently survives the curse. He starts to feel that the story was just a myth and he is relieved when Mai turns up. However, he is shocked to find out that she has been found dead, having given birth with no sign of a baby. Andō goes back to work and sees "Mai" there and finds out that she is none other than Sadako Yamamura, reborn and claiming to be "perfectly dual-gendered". He then learns that Takayama was not helping Andō stop Sadako – instead, he was helping Sadako. Yoshino, Andō's friend Miyashita and many others were not killed by a virus or the video, but rather Reiko's diary. Sadako promises to help resurrect Andō's son in exchange for his help. In the end, Andō brings Takayama and his son back to life with help from Sadako. Just as Ryūji leaves, he tells Andō "Many years will pass before our world will be at peace." 

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The stories are told in the format of a series of letters, told either from the point of view of Father Christmas or his elvish secretary. They document the adventures and misadventures of Father Christmas and his helpers, including the North Polar Bear and his two sidekick cubs, Paksu and Valkotukka. The stories include descriptions of the massive fireworks that create the northern lights and how Polar Bear manages to get into trouble on more than one occasion. The 1939 letter has Father Christmas making reference to the Second World War, while some of the later letters feature Father Christmas' battles against Goblins which were subsequently interpreted as being a reflection of Tolkien's views on the German Menace.Walsh (2001): p. 63 

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Set in contemporary England, the film follows Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford), a renowned anthropologist who learns that in the caves of the countryside a lone male troglodyte is alive and might be able to be helped and even domesticated. In the interest of science and the potential groundbreaking discovery of the missing link, she gets the creature to the surface; and while the rest of the townsfolk and police scatter in terror, Brockton stands steady with her tranquilizer gun and stuns the caveman into submission. She brings him back to her lab for study, but runs into trouble as a few people oppose the presence of a "monster" in the town, especially Sam Murdock (Michael Gough), a local businessman who is not only afraid of the negative commercial consequences but is also suspicious of a woman heading a research facility. In the meantime, the creature, given the name of "Trog", is taught by Brockton to play and share; and the capacity for language is induced by a number of surgeries and a mysterious hypnotic device that causes Trog to see or relive his distant past, including clashes between various dinosaurs. Still disturbed by Brockton's experiments, and enraged at a municipal court's decision to protect Trog, Murdock releases Trog in the middle of the night, hoping the caveman will be confronted and killed by either local residents or well-armed authorities. His plan ultimately succeeds. After being released, Trog wanders into town and kills the first three people he meets (a grocer, a butcher, and a citizen in a car), but not before he beats Murdock to death. Trog then snatches a little girl from a playground and takes her to his cave. Dr. Brockton, the police, and army personnel soon gather at the cave's entrance. After pleading fruitlessly with the authorities to let her reason with Trog and safely retrieve the girl, Brockton suddenly acts on her own and charges down into the cave, where she finds the girl cowering in a corner. Trog initially behaves aggressively at the sight of the doctor in his refuge, but after a stern reprimand and a plea by Brockton, Trog surrenders the girl to her. Shortly after the doctor and girl exit the cave, all of Brockton's work on behalf of science is shattered when soldiers ignite explosives before assaulting the cave. Trog is quickly wounded in a barrage of gunfire, falls, and is impaled on a stalagmite. The film then ends with an on-site news reporter asking the doctor to comment on the death of the missing link, but Brockton is either unwilling or unable at that moment to express her profound disappointment and grief over the loss of Trog, so she simply pushes aside the reporter's microphone and slowly walks away from the scene by herself. 

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The story concerns the adventures of a group of children as they struggle to hold back a terrible darkness by fulfilling a prophecy from another world. The plot moves to and from the world of Elidor, and the city of Manchester and parts of northern Cheshire in the real world.John Clute, "Elidor" in, Frank N. Magill ed., Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, Vol 1. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, Inc., 1983. (pp. 472–474).K.V. Bailey, "Garner, Alan" in St. James Guide To Fantasy Writers, ed. David Pringle, London, St. James Press, 1996, , (pp. 218-220). Like many of Garner's books, the emphasis of the narrative is on the hardships, cost and practicalities of the choices and responsibilities that the protagonists face. 

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The Tribes series begins in 2471, when scientist Solomon Petresun invents the first cybrid, a bio-cybernetic hybrid artificial intelligence named Prometheus. Based on its design, thousands of cybrids are mass-produced as slaves. By 2602, Prometheus grows wary of humans and rallies all cybrids against humanity. In Starsiege, the Terran resistance manages to drive Prometheus' forces out of Earth and onto the Moon where they are believed to be eliminated by General Ambrose Gierling and his squad's suicide attack. Prometheus, however, survives the assault, fleeing into deep space. To counter this threat, Petresun (having technically achieved immortality through his studies) proclaims himself the Emperor of Mankind in 2652 and succeeds in unifying and rebuilding the Terran civilization. Pursuing his goal of fortifying the Earth against the inevitable cybrid retaliation, Petresun ruthlessly exploits Martian and Venusian colonies, spawning massive resistance movements among the colonists by 2802. The chronologically first game in the Tribes series is Tribes: Vengeance which was released in 2004. Set some time between the 33rd and 40th century, it shows the Great Human Empire, now ruled by "Imperial King" Tiberius, having hunted down (almost) all remaining cybrids and expanded beyond the boundaries of the Solar system through the so-called Interstellar Transfer Conduit. While the Empire itself is prosperous, there are outcasts, known as "the Children of Phoenix Weathers", whom they consider their progenitor. Their insubordination has made the Empire dispatch a great force of elite Imperial Knights, the Blood Eagles, against them, however, by the time of Tribes: Vengeance, the Eagles have fully embraced the Tribal way of life, considering themselves Tribesmen despite still having ties to the Empire. The next (chronologically) game in the series, Starsiege: Tribes, 1998, sees the conflict between the Blood Eagles, the Children of Phoenix, and other tribes formed by the renegades of these two (such as the Star Wolf and the Diamond Sword) escalating into countless blood feuds before finally culminating in the devastating Tribal Wars about 3940. The sequel, entitled Tribes 2, 2001, deals with the insurgent uprising of BioDerms, a new race of warriors/workers created by the Empire to replace the cybrids, and their assault on the Wilderzone, the space frontier where the Tribes mostly reside. Tribes Aerial Assault, 2002, does not significantly contribute to the plot of the series. 

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The novel is set in a version of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In the beginning of the book, Maxwell Kane is a young boy with low self-esteem. He lives with his grandfather, Grim, and grandmother, Gram. Max thinks of himself as a big butthead. People are afraid of him because he looks like his father, Kenneth "Killer" Kane, a convicted murderer. Max sets the stage for the story by reminiscing about his time in daycare, when he had met a boy named Kevin, or Freak, as their classmates called him. Kevin has Morquio syndrome, wears leg braces and uses crutches, and thinks of himself as a robot and is bullied by many bigger kids due to his short height. However, Max likes Kevin and thinks the crutches and leg braces are neat. Many years later, when Max is in middle school, he finds out that Freak and his mother, Gwen (referred to as "The Fair Guinevere") are moving into the house next door. When Max initially approaches Freak, Freak acts with hostility. However, sometime later, Max saves Kevin's toy ornithopter from a tree and they start to become friends. On the Fourth of July, they go to see the fireworks show and are attacked by an older boy, Tony "Blade" D. and his gang but avoid any mental or physical conflict. After the show, Blade chases the two with his gang after Freak calls him a cretin. Despite Max's lack of knowledge and disability, he escapes by acting on Freak's orders, but the two are driven into a muddy millpond, Freak riding on Max's shoulders. Freak gets the attention of a nearby police car, who drives off Blade's gang and takes the boys home. After this incident, Kevin starts riding on Max's shoulders regularly. They begin to call themselves "Freak the Mighty". They go on adventures such as going to the hospital which Freak claims has a secret department called the "Bionics Department" which has had his brain CT scanned to be fitted into a bionic body. On one adventure they find a woman's purse in the storm drain. They return it to the woman who is named Loretta Lee. She is the wife of Iggy Lee, leader of the Panheads, a motorcycle gang who "struck fear in everyone, even the cops", as Max puts it. Iggy says that the two of them once knew Max's father. They consider "having some fun" with the boys but don't because they are afraid that Max's father will get parole even though he's serving a life sentence. They also reveal that Kevin's father left once he heard that his son had a birth defect. Freak has an emergency at school and is taken to the hospital. Later, Grim reveals to Max that his father has been released from prison on parole. Throughout the story, it has been gradually revealed that Max's father killed his mother by strangling her. Grim and Gram dislike his dad, and are afraid of Max ending up like him. Grim threatens to buy a gun for the family's protection. Max is shocked and scared by the news of his father's parole. On Christmas Eve, Max is woken up by his father, Killer Kane, who has come to take him to train him to be his assistant. After Max is kidnapped by his father, the two walk to Iggy Lee's apartment in the Testaments. Killer Kane is even bigger than Max and acts in a very threatening, intimidating manner towards everyone, including his son, whom he keeps tied up on a small chair. Killer Kane swears that he did not murder Max's mother and calls himself "a man of God". On Christmas morning he leaves Max alone, tied up in a room in an old abandoned apartment. Loretta, shocked that Kane would do something like that to his own child, tries to help him escape. Killer Kane catches her and starts to strangle her. He begins but is interrupted by Max. Max tries to get up and rips off the rope to which the old boiler has been attached. Max attempts to stop him and reveals that he witnessed his father kill his mother in the same fashion. Kane lets go of Loretta, letting her lie on the ground breathing like a "broken bird" and gives up on training Max to be his obedient assistant so he tries to murder him by strangling him, the same as what he did to Max's mother, but Freak arrives just in time and saves Max by squirting Kane with a squirt gun in the eye which he claims is filled with sulfuric acid when in fact, as Freak reveals later, it is filled with soap, vinegar, and curry powder. The police are waiting outside, and Killer Kane is taken back to prison and has to serve his original sentence plus ten years. Killer Kane pleads guilty. After having a seizure on his birthday, Freak is admitted into the hospital, where he gives Max a blank book, telling him to write the story of Freak the Mighty in it. Max returns to the hospital the next day to find that Freak died because his heart became too big for his body. Dr. Spivak, Kevin's doctor, reveals that Freak knew he was going to have a very short life, but he told Max he was going to get a bionic body because it would give himself hope. The Fair Gwen moves away, with a new man she is in love with, and Max misses Freak's funeral, staying in his room, the "down under" for months. Not even Grim or Gram can get him out, until Grim orders Max to return to school. One day, Max sees Loretta, who tells him "Doing nothing's a drag, kid", so Max writes all of the adventures he and Freak had, in honor of his best friend. 

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Kevin "Freak" Dillon (Kieran Culkin) is a boy suffering from Morquio syndrome and living with his mother Gwen Dillon (Sharon Stone). He is extremely intelligent and is obsessed with flights of fancy, but due to his disability, he walks with leg braces and crutches. Meanwhile, Maxwell "Max" Kane (Elden Henson) is a 15-year-old beastly yet good-natured boy suffering from dyslexia and living with his maternal grandparents Susan "Gram" (Gena Rowlands) and Elton "Grim" Pinneman (Harry Dean Stanton). He has flunked the seventh grade twice and is tormented by Tony "Blade" Fowler (Joseph Perrino), a teenage delinquent who is the leader of a teenage bully gang named the "Doghouse Boys". When Kevin is assigned as Max's reading tutor, they form a bond of friendship over the similar circumstances they share, such as both being outcasts in their school and their fathers abandoning them. Freak and Max go to a local festival to watch a firework show where they get attacked by Blade and his gang. The two then escape into a nearby lake with Freak riding on Max's shoulders. Freak later witnesses the "Doghouse Boys" putting someone's purse in a sewer. The two retrieve the purse but are once again confronted by Blade and his gang. They attempt to attack Freak, but Max stops them by picking up a manhole cover and throwing it at the gang, forcing them to flee in a panic. Max and Freak find that the purse belongs to a woman named Loretta Lee (Gillian Anderson). They return the purse to Loretta who is married to Iggy Lee (Meat Loaf), a former gang leader. Loretta recognizes Max from his childhood; she and Iggy were old friends of Max's father Kenny "Killer" Kane, who is imprisoned for the murder of Max's mother when Max was younger. Afterward, the two boys help each other out with Freak acting as Max's brain and Max acting as Freak's legs by carrying him around everywhere on his shoulders, allowing Freak to partake in activities he couldn't do before such as a basketball game. Now popular among students of the school, Freak, in an attempt to entertain his new friends by playing with his food, chokes on it and collapses. He is then rushed to the hospital where Gwen is informed that Freak has only a year left to live due to his deteriorating health accelerated by the blockage of his airways. One day, Freak shows Max a research center where he is to be rehabilitated. It appears that he knew about his condition as he stated that he'd be the first one to be retrofitted with a new body. On Christmas Eve, Max is kidnapped by Killer Kane who has been released on parole and is taken to Iggy and Loretta's apartment, where he is tied up. Loretta attempts to help Max escape but Killer attempts to strangle her. Max's seeing the attack prompts a repressed memory of Killer Kane killing his mother; he breaks free of his bonds and attacks his own father. Freak tracks Max and Killer Kane to Iggy and Loretta's apartment and breaks in, armed with a squirt gun he claims is loaded with sulfuric acid which he got for Christmas, which he sprays in Killer Kane's eyes. Just before an angered Killer Kane regains himself and attempts to hurt Freak, Max tackles him through the wall where the police are waiting; Killer Kane is then returned to prison for life without the possibility of parole while Freak and Max run home to have Christmas dinner together along with Gwen, Grim and Gram. While exchanging Christmas gifts, Freak gives Max a blank book and tells him to write in it. That night, Freak dies in his sleep due to heart problems in which the next morning Max hears the news from Gram and gives chase to the ambulance on foot. Max recalls the research center Freak had mentioned earlier and rushes there, only to discover that Freak lied: the research center in question is nothing other than a commercial laundromat. Heartbroken, Max breaks down in grief among the laundry workers. The following weeks, Max continues attending school but spends his spare time locked in the basement, even missing Freak's funeral and seeing Gwen moving away. He later runs into Loretta at a bus stop, who advises him that "doing nothing's a drag, kid". He takes this advice to heart and even works up the courage to answer a question from his teacher during a lecture. Inspired by their bond, Max remembers Freak and all the adventures they had so he decides to write it all in the empty book Freak had given him for Christmas. Max gets writer's block on the last page and puts an illustration of King Arthur's grave which reads "Here Lies King Arthur, Once and Future King", to symbolize his belief that he will see Freak again. Max then takes Freak's ornithopter and winds it up, making it fly. As the ornithopter flies off, a narration by Max is heard: 

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Five years after saving New York City from destruction by the demigod Gozer, the Ghostbusters have been sued for the property damage incurred and barred from investigating the supernatural, forcing them out of business. Raymond Stantz owns an occult bookstore and works a side job alongside Winston Zeddemore as unpopular children's entertainers. Egon Spengler works in a laboratory experimenting with human emotions, and Peter Venkman hosts a television show about psychics. Dana Barrett, Peter's ex-girlfriend, has an infant son named Oscar with her ex- husband and works at an art museum cleaning paintings. She turns to the Ghostbusters for help after Oscar's baby stroller rolls, seemingly by itself, into a busy road intersection. At the museum, a portrait of Vigo the Carpathian, a brutal, sixteenth-century tyrant and powerful magician, comes to life and enslaves Dana's boss Janosz Poha. Vigo orders Janosz to bring him a child to possess, allowing him to escape the confines of his painting and live again to conquer the world. Because of his infatuation with Dana, Janosz chooses Oscar. Meanwhile, the Ghostbusters excavate the intersection where Oscar's stroller stopped and discover a river of slime running through the abandoned Beach Pneumatic Transit system. Raymond obtains a sample but is attacked by the slime and accidentally breaks a pipe which falls onto a power line, causing a citywide blackout. The Ghostbusters are arrested and taken to court for the damage and for investigating the supernatural. In the courtroom, the slime sample is presented as evidence. It responds physically to judge Wexler's angry tirade against the Ghostbusters and then explodes, summoning the ghosts of two brothers he sentenced to death. The Ghostbusters capture the ghosts in exchange for a dismissal of the charges and the revocation of the order banning them from operating. One night, the slime invades Dana's apartment, attacking her and Oscar. She seeks refuge with Peter and they rekindle their relationship. The Ghostbusters discover the slime reacts to emotions and suspect it has amassed from the negative attitudes of New Yorkers. While Peter and Dana have dinner, Egon, Raymond, and Winston explore the underground river of slime and are pulled in. They begin fighting until Egon realizes they are being influenced by the slime. They determine that the river of slime flows to the museum. The Ghostbusters tell the mayor of their suspicions but are dismissed; his assistant Jack Hardemeyer has them committed to a psychiatric hospital to protect the mayor's political interests. A spirit in the form of Janosz kidnaps Oscar and Dana pursues them into the museum, which is then covered with impenetrable slime. On New Year's Eve, the slime rises to the streets, causing widespread chaos. Learning of Hardemeyer's actions, the mayor fires him and has the Ghostbusters released. Determining the need for a positive symbol to rally the citizens and weaken the slime, the Ghostbusters use positively charged slime to animate the Statue of Liberty and pilot it through the streets filled with cheering citizens. At the museum, the museum's slime covering partially recedes and they use the Statue's torch to break through the ceiling, stopping Vigo from completing his possession of Oscar. The ghostbusters rappel through the ceiling and neutralize Janosz with positive slime. Vigo takes on physical form, immobilizes Dana and the Ghostbusters, and recaptures Oscar. The gathered crowds outside begin singing a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne", and their positivity weakens Vigo. He is forced to return to the painting and the Ghostbusters are freed. Vigo possesses Raymond, but the Ghostbusters use their weapons to free him and destroy Vigo, his portrait being replaced by their likenesses surrounding Oscar. In the aftermath, the Ghostbusters are cheered by the city and the Statue of Liberty is returned to Liberty Island. 

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The protagonist is a woman who has been thrown out into the street without any money by her jealous husband, when he discovers she has been carrying on an affair. She is not even allowed to see their young son. She sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she has become the mistress of a criminal. When he finds out that her husband is now the attorney general, her lover decides to blackmail him. Desperate to shield her son from her disgrace, she shoots and kills her lover. By chance, the lawyer assigned to her turns out to be her own son, on his first case. He is puzzled and frustrated when she refuses to defend herself in court, or even to provide her name (which forces the tribunal to identify her as "Madame X"). During the trial, her husband shows up in support of his son. When the defendant sees that her husband recognizes her and is about to speak out, she makes an impassioned plea, not for mercy but for understanding of what drove her to murder. As she had intended, the hidden message silences her husband. When she faints from the strain, she is carried into a private chamber. There, she kisses her still-unaware son and dies. 

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Long ago, a drop of liquid sunlight sprouted a magical healing flower. For centuries, Mother Gothel used the flower to retain her youth, until soldiers from a nearby kingdom plucked it to heal their ailing and pregnant queen. Shortly afterward, the Queen gives birth to Princess Rapunzel, whose golden hair contains the flower's healing properties. Gothel tries to steal a lock of Rapunzel's hair to use the power once again but discovers that cutting the hair renders it inert. She instead abducts Rapunzel and raises her as her own in a secret tower. In order to keep the confined, isolated Rapunzel content, Gothel teaches her to fear the outside world and its people. Each year, the King and Queen release sky lanterns on Rapunzel's birthday, hoping for their daughter to see them and return. On the eve of her 18th birthday, Rapunzel asks to leave the tower and discover the lanterns' source, but Gothel refuses. Meanwhile in the kingdom, a thief named Flynn Rider steals Rapunzel's intended crown from the palace and ditches his partners, the Stabbington brothers, while fleeing. He takes refuge with the crown in Rapunzel's tower, but Rapunzel knocks him unconscious and hides him in the closet. Gothel returns, and Rapunzel tries to show Flynn to her to demonstrate her readiness for the "dangerous" outside world. However, Gothel still dismisses her. Rapunzel sends Gothel away on a three-day journey to acquire paints. With Gothel gone, Rapunzel hides the crown from Flynn and leverages it to convince him to escort her to see the lanterns for her birthday. Along the way, Flynn brings Rapunzel to the Snuggly Duckling, a pub filled with menacing thugs, who initially try to capture the wanted Flynn but instead, are charmed by Rapunzel. Meanwhile, Gothel comes upon Maximus, a palace horse determined to capture Flynn. Recognizing that kingdom guards may be closing in on her hidden tower, she returns to check on Rapunzel. She discovers her gone and Flynn's satchel with stolen crown there instead and goes after the pair. Royal soldiers led by Maximus arrive at the pub in search of Flynn. Rapunzel and Flynn escape but are trapped in a flooding cave. Resigned to their fate, Flynn reveals his real name, Eugene Fitzherbert, and Rapunzel reveals that her hair glows when she sings. They use the light to escape the cave and take refuge in the forest. That night, Gothel, now in league with the Stabbingtons, gives the crown to Rapunzel and suggests using it to test Eugene's loyalty. In the morning, Maximus finds the pair and tries to arrest Flynn, but Rapunzel demands a truce in honor of her birthday. The group reach the kingdom and enjoy the birthday festivities, culminating in an evening cruise as the lanterns are released. There, Rapunzel gives Eugene the crown after fulfilling her dream of seeing the lanterns in person. They confess their love and are about to kiss when Eugene notices the Stabbingtons on the shore. He leaves Rapunzel to give them the crown as an apology, but they assault him and tie him to a boat headed for the palace. Eugene is detained while the brothers convince Rapunzel that Eugene has abandoned her. Gothel stages a rescue and returns with Rapunzel to the tower. There, Rapunzel suddenly recognizes the symbol of the kingdom, which she had subconsciously incorporated into her paintings over the years. Realizing that she is the long-lost princess for whom the lanterns are sent, she confronts Gothel. At the same time, Maximus and the Duckling thugs help Eugene escape captivity, and Maximus rushes him back to Gothel's tower. Eugene enters by climbing Rapunzel's hair, only to find Rapunzel chained and gagged. Gothel stabs Eugene and tries to flee with Rapunzel. Rapunzel agrees to go willingly if she is allowed to heal Eugene first. Wanting her to be free, Eugene cuts off her hair, which turns brown and loses its magic, causing Gothel to age rapidly and fall to her death. Rapunzel mourns for Eugene, heartbroken, and one of her tears, still containing the flower's magic, lands on his cheek and restores his life. The two return to the kingdom where Rapunzel reunites with her royal, real parents. And finally, after a time, marries Eugene. 

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In 1997, Los Angeles is suffering from both a heat wave and a turf war between heavily armed Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels. A Predator watches a shootout between the police, Jamaicans and Colombians, observing as Lieutenant Michael R. Harrigan charges into the firefight to rescue two wounded officers and drive the Colombians back into their hideout. The Predator assaults the Colombians, causing a disturbance that prompts Harrigan and detectives Leona Cantrell and Danny Archuleta to defy orders and enter the hideout. They find the Colombians have all been killed. On the roof, Harrigan shoots the crazed gang leader and catches a glimpse of the camouflaged Predator but dismisses it as a consequence of the extreme heat and his acrophobia. At the station, Harrigan is reprimanded by his superiors for his disobedience. He is introduced to Special Agent Peter Keyes, leader of a task force investigating the cartels, and Detective Jerry Lambert, the newest member of Harrigan's team. Later that evening, Jamaicans enter the Colombian drug lord's penthouse and murder him, but they are then slaughtered by the Predator. Harrigan's team sees the drug lord's body and the Jamaicans' skinned corpses suspended from the rafters, noting the similarity to the earlier Colombian massacre. Keyes arrives and kicks Harrigan's team out. Danny later returns to continue investigating. After he finds one of the Predator's speartip weapons in an air conditioning vent, the lurking Predator kills him. An enraged Harrigan vows to bring down Danny's killer. Forensic analysis reveals the speartip is not composed of any known element on the periodic table. Seeking answers, Harrigan meets with Jamaican drug lord King Willie, a voodoo practitioner. King Willie tells Harrigan that the killer is supernatural, and that he should prepare himself for battle against him. Harrigan leaves before the Predator kills King Willie, taking his head as a trophy. Tracing a lead indicating Danny's killer had recently been in a slaughterhouse, Harrigan arranges to meet his team at a warehouse district to investigate. Cantrell and Lambert take the subway to the rendezvous when the Predator, hunting Harrigan's subordinates, suddenly attacks. Lambert and numerous armed passengers are killed, but Cantrell is spared after the Predator's scan of her body reveals that she is pregnant. Arriving on the scene, Harrigan chases the fleeing Predator but is intercepted by Keyes' men. Keyes reveals that the killer is an extraterrestrial hunter with infrared vision that uses active camouflage and has been hunting humans for sport throughout armed conflicts, most recently in Central America (as depicted in the previous film). Keyes and his team have set a trap in a nearby slaughterhouse, using thermally insulated suits and cryogenic weapons to capture it for study. When the Predator arrives, the trap is sprung. However, the suspicious Predator uses its mask to scan through various electromagnetic wavelengths to identify the team's flashlights, and it easily outmaneuvers and slaughters the men. Harrigan attacks the Predator, badly wounding it before it rallies, destroys his weapon, and closes in. Harrigan is saved by the sudden reappearance of Keyes, who tries to freeze the alien but is bisected by its throwing disc. The Predator chases Harrigan to a roof and the two foes clash, leaving them hanging from a ledge. The alien activates a self-destruct device on its forearm, which Harrigan severs with the throwing disc, rendering the device harmless. The Predator falls through an apartment window and flees. Harrigan follows it down an elevator shaft and finds a spacecraft in an underground chamber. Inside the ship, after discovering a trophy room with different skulls, including a Xenomorph, Harrigan battles the predator in a final duel and kills him with the throwing disc. A whole group of Predators suddenly appear and collect their dead comrade, while their leader Greyback spares Harrigan and presents him with an antique flintlock pistol as a trophy. Harrigan escapes from the ship as it takes off. He reaches the surface just as the remainder of Keyes' team arrives. As Keyes' subordinate Garber curses their lost opportunity to capture the alien, Harrigan privately muses that the beings will return. 

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In the small town of Clanton, in fictional Ford County, Mississippi, a ten-year-old African- American girl named Tonya Hailey is viciously raped and beaten by two white supremacists, James "Pete" Willard and Billy Ray Cobb. Tonya is later found and rushed to the hospital while Pete and Billy Ray are heard bragging at a roadside bar about their crime. Tonya's distraught and outraged father, Carl Lee Hailey, consults his friend Jake Brigance, a white attorney who had previously represented Hailey's brother, on whether he could get himself acquitted if he killed the two men. Jake tells Carl Lee not to do anything stupid, but admits that if it had been his daughter, he would kill the rapists. Carl Lee is determined to avenge Tonya and, while Pete and Billy Ray are being led into holding after their bond hearing, he kills both men with an M16 rifle. Carl Lee is charged with capital murder. Despite efforts to persuade Carl Lee to retain high-powered attorneys, he elects to be represented by Jake. Helping Jake are two loyal friends, disbarred attorney Lucien Wilbanks and sleazy divorce lawyer Harry Rex Vonner. Later, the team is assisted by liberal law student Ellen Roark, who has prior experience with death penalty cases and offers her services as a temporary clerk pro bono. Ellen appears to be interested in Jake romantically, but the married Jake resists her overtures. The team also receives some illicit behind-the-scenes help from black county sheriff Ozzie Walls, a figure beloved by the black community and also well respected by the white community who upholds the law by arresting Carl Lee but, as the father of two daughters of his own, privately supports Carl Lee and gives him special treatment while in jail and goes out of the way to assist Jake in any way he legally can. Carl Lee is prosecuted by Ford County's corrupt district attorney, Rufus Buckley, who hopes that the case will boost his political career. It is claimed that the judge presiding over Carl Lee's trial, Omar "Ichabod" Noose, has been intimidated by local white supremacist elements. This proves true when, despite having no history of racist inclinations in his rulings, Noose refuses Jake's perfectly reasonable request for a change of venue, even though the racial make-up of Ford County virtually guarantees an all-white jury. Billy Ray's brother, Freddy, seeks revenge against Carl Lee, enlisting the help of the Mississippi branch of the Ku Klux Klan and its Grand Dragon, Stump Sisson. Subsequently, the KKK attempts to plant a bomb beneath Jake's porch, leading him to send his wife and daughter out of town until the trial is over. Later, the KKK attacks Jake's secretary, Ethel Twitty, and kills her frail husband, Bud. They also burn crosses in the yards of potential jurors to intimidate them. On the day the trial begins, a riot erupts between the KKK and the area's black residents outside of the courthouse; Stump is killed by a molotov cocktail. Believing that the black people are at fault for Stump's death, Freddy and the KKK increase their attacks. As a result, the National Guard is called to Clanton to keep the peace during Carl Lee's trial. Undeterred, Freddy continues his efforts to get revenge for Billy Ray's death. The KKK shoots at Jake one morning as he is being escorted into the courthouse, missing Jake but seriously wounding one of the guardsmen assigned to protect him. Soon after, Ellen Roark is kidnapped. One night, the jury's spokesman is threatened by KKK with a knife. Later, they burn down Jake's house. Eventually, they torture and murder "Mickey Mouse", one of Jake's former clients who had infiltrated the KKK and had subsequently given anonymous hints to the police, allowing them to anticipate most KKK attacks. Despite the loss of his house and several setbacks at the start of the trial, Jake perseveres. He badly discredits the state's psychiatrist by establishing that he has never conceded to the insanity of any defendant in any criminal case in which he has been asked to testify, even when several other doctors have been in consensus otherwise. He traps the doctor with a revelation that several previous defendants found insane in their trials are currently under his care despite his having testified to their "sanity" in their respective trials. Jake follows this up with a captivating closing statement. The day of the verdict, tens of thousands of black citizens gather in town and demand Carl Lee's acquittal. Most jurors are so intimidated by the crowd outside the courthouse that they do not dare to vote for a conviction, but the unanimous acquittal by reason of temporary insanity is only achieved when one of the jurors asks the others to seriously imagine that Carl Lee and his daughter were white and that the murdered rapists were black. Carl Lee returns to his family and the story ends with Jake, Lucien and Harry Rex having a celebratory drink before Jake holds a press conference and leaving town to reunite with his family. 

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Tony Last is a country gentleman, living with his wife Brenda and his eight-year-old son John Andrew in his ancestral home, Hetton Abbey. The house is a Victorian pseudo-Gothic pastiche described as architecturally "devoid of interest" by a local guide book and "ugly" by his wife, but is Tony's pride and joy. Entirely content with country life, he is seemingly unaware of Brenda's increasing boredom and dissatisfaction, and of his son's developing waywardness. Brenda meets John Beaver and, despite acknowledging his dullness and insignificance, she begins an affair with him. Brenda starts spending her weeks in London, and persuades Tony to finance a small flat, which she rents from John's mother, Mrs Beaver, an unscrupulous property developer. Although the Brenda–Beaver liaison is well known to their London friends, Tony remains uxorious and oblivious; attempts by Brenda and her friends to set him up with a mistress are absurdly unsuccessful. Brenda is in London when John Andrew is killed in a riding accident. On being told that "John is dead", Brenda at first thinks that Beaver has died; on learning that it is her son John, she betrays her true feelings by uttering an involuntary "Thank God!". After the funeral, she tells Tony that she wants a divorce so that she can marry Beaver. On learning the extent of her deception Tony is shattered, but agrees to protect Brenda's social reputation by allowing her to divorce him, and to provide her with £500 a year. After spending an awkward but chaste weekend in Brighton with a prostitute contriving divorce evidence, Tony learns from Brenda's brother that, encouraged by Beaver, Brenda is now demanding £2,000 a year—a sum that would require Tony to sell Hetton. Tony's illusions are shattered. However, the prostitute brought her child with her who can establish that Tony did not commit adultery and the blackmail fails. Tony withdraws from the divorce negotiations, and announces that he intends to travel for six months. On his return, he says, Brenda may have her divorce, but without any financial settlement. With no prospect of Tony's money, Beaver loses interest in Brenda, who is left adrift and in poverty. Meanwhile, Tony has met an explorer, Dr Messinger, and joins him on an expedition in search of a supposed lost city in the Amazon rainforest. On the outward journey, Tony engages in a shipboard romance with Thérèse de Vitré, a young girl whose Roman Catholicism causes her to shun him when he tells her he has a wife. In Brazil, Messinger proves an incompetent organiser; he cannot control the native guides, who abandon him and Tony in the depths of the jungle. Tony falls ill, and Messinger leaves in their only canoe to find help, but is swept over a waterfall and killed. Tony wanders in delirium until he is rescued by Mr Todd, a British Guianan who rules over a small extended family in a remote clearing in the jungle. Todd nurses Tony back to health. Although illiterate, Todd owns copies of the complete works of Charles Dickens, and asks Tony to read to him. However, when Tony's health recovers and he asks to be helped on his way, the old man repeatedly demurs. The readings continue, but the atmosphere becomes increasingly menacing as Tony realises he is being held against his will. When a search party finally reaches the settlement, Todd arranges that Tony be drugged and kept hidden; he leads the party to believe that Tony has died, and gives them his watch to take home as evidence. When Tony awakes he learns that his hopes of rescue are gone, and that he is condemned to read Dickens to his captor indefinitely. Back in England, Tony's death is accepted; Hetton passes to his cousins, who erect a memorial to his memory, while Brenda marries Tony's friend Jock Grant-Menzies. 

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Jack Aubrey and Sophia Williams are married and the parents of twin girls. They live at Ashgrove Cottage on his half-pay, not enough to support fellow navy men in the household. Sophia's mother has lost her money, including Sophia's portion, and now lives with them. They have Cecelia, Sophia's young niece in their household as well. As much as he loves Sophia, Aubrey is ready to go to sea again. Stephen Maturin comes to call, and soon after Aubrey's orders are delivered from the port Admiral. He is given command of the 38-gun frigate HMS Boadicea. At Plymouth, he picks up orders and Mr R T Farquhar, a political gentleman. He is to sail to the station at Cape Town where the ships of a convoy will meet. Not long away from home, they meet with the French ship Hébé which is escorting a captured merchant ship. The Boadicea captures both ships. Aubrey sends the prizes to Gibraltar. The timely capture allows the ship to send letters home, gain a French cook and the Hébé's English prisoners, all able seamen. The long journey in the Atlantic gives Aubrey time to bring the crew of the Boadicea up to his standards of efficiency in gunnery, and gives Maturin and Farquhar time to develop strategies. On arrival, Aubrey meets Admiral Bertie who confirms Aubrey's position as Commodore and authorises him to hoist his broad pendant ('broad pennant' in some editions). He receives formal instructions to disrupt French interests in the region, and ultimately to take the islands of Mauritius and La Réunion. The convoy includes Lord Clonfert of the Otter, an Englishman with an Irish title; Captain Corbett of Néréide; and Captain Pym of the Sirius. Corbett sailed from the West Indies station with some of Aubrey's followers aboard. Bonden, Killick and others join, after Aubrey trades men into Corbett's ship. Corbett is capable but a flogging captain. Bertie advises Aubrey that Clonfert and Corbett are not on good terms with each other. For the first 2,000 miles of the voyage to the islands, Aubrey switches his pendant to the elderly 64-gun ship of the line HMS Raisonnable. The Caroline is taken; Corbett sails her, christened HMS Bourbonnaise, with dispatches to Cape Town and England. The rest of the convoy returns to Cape Town. Aubrey shifts back to HMS Boadicea and sails upon news of more merchant ships taken by the French. The convoy is caught in a major hurricane, whence it sails back to Cape Town for repairs, receiving the first mail in many months. Sophia's letters are water-damaged, so Aubrey does not understand her full message. La Réunion capitulates almost without loss after a landing by Army troops joined by sepoys under the British East India Company, all under the active and decisive Lieutenant Colonel Harry Keating, with ships of the convoy on both sides of the island. Their path is eased by Maturin's propaganda and political meetings to explain why the locals should be happy to accept the British, with Farquhar as interim Governor. Mauritius proves more challenging. Maturin has an accident boarding HMS Néréide, which is part of the force sent to Île de la Passe. He is seriously injured, so he observes Clonfert during this recuperation aboard. The action is successful. Maturin is put down on Mauritius to continue his work. A small group of ships, under the command of Captain Pym, puts soldiers on Mauritius to staff the fort. The French appear with three ships Bellone, Minerve, Victor and two Indiamen Ceylon and Windham. They boldly attack the fort and then sail into the port; the British are caught unprepared but decide to attack. The struggle goes on for days with heavy casualties and in the end two British ships run aground. Sirius and Magicienne are burnt to prevent their capture, and Iphigenia and the fort at Île de la Passe are abandoned to be retaken by the French. Néréide is taken and Clonfert is severely wounded in the neck and head by a splinter. A messenger vessel, with Maturin aboard, reaches La Réunion to inform Aubrey of the losses and the failed attack on Port Southeast. Boadicea sails through the night to check Île de la Passe, to see it under French control, then chases Manche and Vénus in a vain attempt to separate them. After making contact with Pullings, who has the guns of Windham aboard Emma, Aubrey believes his fortunes have changed. Then Captain Corbett re-joins at St Denis, with HMS Africaine. Chasing the French during the night, Africaine clashes with the Astrée and the French Iphigenie. The encounter goes badly and Corbett is killed during the fight after being wounded, possibly by his own oppressed men. The French capture the Africaine, but leave it dismasted when the Boadicea bears down on them; Astrée refuses an engagement. Joined by the Otter and Staunch, the flotilla reaches La Réunion where refit of the Africaine is the Commodore's top priority. Maturin and Bonden return from Mauritius with news that HMS Bombay is nearby, in a running fight with both the French Vénus and Victor. The Boadicea engages the French ships. Aubrey makes use of volunteer crew from the refitting HMS Africaine to board and capture Bombay and Vénus. During the encounter the French Commodore Hamelin is killed. Aubrey plans how to finish the battle, once the remaining French ships will be ready to sail, and his ships are ready to fight again, when they reach Mauritius. Keating is equally ready. The Emma nears the Boadicea, with many other British sails in view. Tom Pullings comes aboard with the Gazette announcing the birth of a son to Sophia. Aubrey is ecstatic at the news. Then he opens Admiral Bertie's letter ordering him to join the fleet at Rodriguez, where he will be on HMS Illustrious, and the Army led by General Abercrombie. The final invasion, based on Aubrey and Keating's original plan, is almost without bloodshed. The French capitulate after being given honourable terms. Maturin finds that Clonfert, at the military hospital in Port Louis since the battle, has committed suicide, unable to face Jack Aubrey, whom he considers a rival. A ceremonial dinner is given at Government House. Maturin spreads rumours about Aubrey's father soon to have power in London, via Mr Peters, which rumours are believed by Bertie. The Admiral gives Aubrey the honour of taking the dispatches of this success aboard the Boadicea to England. 

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A young gentleman named John Openshaw has a strange story: in 1869 his uncle Elias Openshaw had suddenly come back to England to settle on an estate in Horsham, West Sussex after living for years in the United States as a planter in Florida and serving as a colonel in the Confederate Army. Not being married, Elias had allowed his nephew to stay at his estate. Strange incidents have occurred; one is that although John could go anywhere else in the house, he could never enter a locked room containing his uncle's trunks. Another peculiarity was that in March 1883 a letter postmarked Pondicherry, in India, arrived for the Colonel inscribed only "K. K. K." with five orange pips (seeds) enclosed. More strange things happened: Papers from the locked room were burnt and a will was drawn up leaving the estate to John Openshaw. The Colonel's behaviour became bizarre. He would either lock himself in his room and drink or he would go shouting forth in a drunken sally with a pistol in his hand. On 2 May 1883 he was found dead in a garden pool. On 4 January 1885 Elias's brother Joseph - John's father - received a letter postmarked Dundee with the initials "K. K. K." and instructions to leave "the papers" on the sundial. Despite his son's urging, Joseph Openshaw refused to call the police. Three days later, Joseph Openshaw was found dead in a chalk-pit. The only clue with which John Openshaw can furnish Holmes is a page from his uncle's diary marked March 1869 describing orange pips having been sent to three men, of whom two fled and the third has been "visited". Holmes advises Openshaw to leave the diary page with a note on the garden sundial, telling of the burning of the Colonel's papers. After Openshaw leaves, Holmes deduces from the time that has passed between the letter mailings and the deaths of Elias and his brother that the writer is on a sailing ship. Holmes also recognises the "K. K. K." as the Ku Klux Klan, an anti-Reconstruction domestic terrorist group in the South, until its sudden collapse in March 1869 – and theorises that this collapse was the result of the Colonel's maliciously taking their papers away to England. The next day there is a newspaper account that the body of John Openshaw has been found in the River Thames and the death is believed to be an accident. Holmes checks sailing records of ships who were at both Pondicherry in January/February 1883 and at Dundee in January 1885 and recognises a Georgia-registered barque named the Lone Star, that he infers is a reference to Texas. Furthermore, Holmes confirms that the Lone Star had docked in London a week before. Holmes sends five orange pips to the captain of the Lone Star, and then sends a telegram to the Savannah police claiming that the captain and two mates are wanted for murder. The Lone Star never arrives in Savannah, due to a severe gale. The only trace of the boat is a ship's sternpost marked "LS" sighted in the North Atlantic. 

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Sailing into Halifax, the victorious HMS Shannon contends with her losses in officers and crew, with particular concern for Captain Broke, who lies unconscious from head wounds. The American Captain Lawrence dies en route from the battle, and is buried at Halifax. Once in port, as prisoners of war are taken ashore and the British Navy deserters identified among them, the Shannons and her passengers, Captain Jack Aubrey, Dr Stephen Maturin, and Mrs Diana Villiers feel the full joy of the first naval victory in this war with America. Maturin communicates with Major Beck, an army counterpart in intelligence work. At the victory ball, Aubrey is pursued by Amanda Smith, known to Diana for her deceiving ways. Aubrey tires of her after a night, yet she persists. Aubrey receives his first letters from his wife Sophia since the Leopard was left in the Dutch East Indies, so long ago. Others write the report of Broke's victory, to speed the official news to England. Captain Dalgleish on the mail packet Diligence carries the copy of the official report, and Aubrey, Maturin and Mrs Villiers as passengers. The American privateer Liberty chases Diligence on its northern route home. Diana is certain that the privateers are hired by the vengeful Johnson. The Liberty sails into ice and sinks, her crew taken aboard by her follower, and Diligence reaches the Channel in 17 days. News of the victory is well-received, while Aubrey is eager to get home. He sees his children, grown so much from when he last saw them, and his wife Sophia. Maturin visits Ireland for his uncle. He gives Johnson's private papers to Sir Joseph Blaine, asks him for Diana's release, and gets Skinner as a lawyer for Aubrey to deal with the projector. Maturin goes to Paris to present his scientific work at the Institut, taking Diana with him. He finds her a place to stay with Adhemar de la Mothe and an accoucheur as Diana is pregnant by Johnson. At the Institut presentation, Diana wears her diamonds; she dearly loves these, among them the Blue Peter, the largest of the set. After Maturin speaks, he learns of Ponsich's death near Pomerania. Maturin leaves immediately to take up this mission. Letters from Miss Smith discomfit Aubrey. Maturin advises Aubrey that Miss Smith is lying. Maturin wants Aubrey as his captain to reach the heavily fortified Grimsholm Island in the Baltic. They are joined by Jagiello, a young and handsome Lithuanian officer with the Swedish army as a translator. Blaine tells Maturin that Ramon d’Ullastret is the leader in the fortress; in fact he is Maturin's god-father. Aubrey is offered the sloop HMS Ariel, leaving on the next tide, with no time to stop at home for his sea chest. Mr Pellworm, a Baltic pilot, is on board when Aubrey arrives at Ariel. Ariel passes Elsinore where the shore batteries fire but miss the ship. At Carlscrona, they meet with Admiral Saumarez to devise their plan. Aubrey takes the Minnie, the Dutch privateer carrying French officers to Grimsholm; Aubrey uses it to carry wine, tobacco and Maturin to Grimsholm Island. When Maturin begins speaking in Catalan, he is accepted and no lives are lost as the British take the fortified island. Admiral Saumarez welcomes Colonel d’Ullastret and is pleased with their success. The Colonel boards the Ariel, while the Catalan garrison travels in troop transports to Spain with Aeolus as escort, again navigating the narrow channels past Denmark. As they are leaving the Baltic Sea,at around Gothenburg, an Ariel crew member drops the only chronometer in heavy seas, so they sail into the North Sea and into the shallow waters of the English Channel unable to accurately chart their exact location and without theAeolus which has taken refuge from the storm, leaving Ariel and her transport ships alone. Before Ushant, a crew member drops the only chronometer, so they sail not knowing their exact location. In heavy rains, Ariel meets one French ship, the Méduse, and one British. Aubrey tells the troop transports to part, as Ariel will aid HMS Jason against the fast-sailing Méduse. Having done some damage to Méduse, Ariel is embayed in Douarnenez Bay on the French mainland. While trying to beat their way out, a mishap causes the Ariel to strike a rock and she is washed ashore. The officers and crew are taken as prisoners of war by the French. Colonel d’Ullastret is given a Marine's uniform and a false name, and he promptly escapes. Aubrey, Maturin and Jagiello are taken to Paris with Monsieur Duhamel and lodged in the Temple. Aubrey works on a way to escape from the prison, with help from Jagiello. Maturin is questioned by competing French intelligence groups; from one he learns that Diana miscarried. Duhamel makes an offer from parties expecting the emperor's defeat. From English newspapers, Aubrey learns that HMS Ajax took Méduse, making his efforts worthwhile, and that Miss Smith is married. In another session, newly arrived Johnson identifies Maturin as the killer of two French agents, after an interrogator says someone has paid "half Golconda" for his release. Maturin agrees to go with Duhamel, who takes them out of the Temple, picks up Diana, and remarks how Aubrey's escape shaft will be the explanation for their disappearance. They board the packet ship HMS Oedipus, under William Babbington. Diana has given up the Blue Peter to a French minister, a diamond from the Golconda mines, to save Stephen. They marry on the ship, with Aubrey giving her away, and Babbington officiating. 

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Son of a wealthy cocoa planter, Paulo Rigger, a Brazilian intellectual who has studied in Europe for seven years, wants to participate in the political and intellectual life of the country. He joins a group of intellectuals in Salvador to discuss matters of love, politics, religion and philosophy. Doubts as to the directions the nation is taking are foremost in the minds of the intellectuals. Rigger criticizes the racial miscegenation of the country and particularly the institution of Carnival, which he blames for the country's lagging development, believing that Carnival keeps people alienated. Its excesses are cause for shock, even if his contact with the people during the street festivities makes him again feel genuinely Brazilian. Confused by these contradictions, Rigger decides to return to Europe. 

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The novel tells the story of the friendship between a poor black youngster from Salvador de Bahia, Antonio Balduino, and a candomblé priest - Pai de Santo -, Jubiabá. After the death of his insane aunt when he was a boy, Balduino is sent to work in a rich white family. However, he has to escape when he is unjustly accused of violence towards Lindinalva, the beautiful daughter of his hosts. Balduino thenceforth spends the rest of his youth in freedom as a member of a gang of street kids, which anticipates Amado's later novel Captains of the Sands. Subsequently, he becomes a successful boxer but, depressed after his first defeat, he leaves Salvador and starts to work on a tobacco plantation, only to be forced to flee again when he almost murders a fellow worker. On his return to Salvador, he surprisingly meets Lindinalva, who, following the bankruptcy of her father, is now a prostitute. On her death bed she entrusts her son to him. Balduino is then employed as a port worker. His involvement in a general strike causes conflict with his old friend Jubiabá, who he considers insufficiently supportive of the strike. 

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Sea of Death tells stories of the dockside of Salvador, Bahia. The lives of the sailors of sloops in the bay from which Bahia gets its name are centred on the mythology surrounding the goddess Iemanjá, the "Queen of the Ocean" or the "Mother of Waters", are central to this novel, which portrays their daily struggle for survival. The novel features a variety of characters whose lives unfold around the story of two lovers, Guma and Lívia. They include the black Rufino and his mulatto lover Esmeralda; Francisco, Guma’s uncle, who mends nets; and the foul-mouthed Rosa Palmeirão. 

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The story offers a feminist perspective on the person of Christ and on the beginnings of the Christian Church. Since it presents Jesus as merely a human being and deviates from the orthodox biblical portrayal of the Son of Man, the novel was severely criticised by mainstream Christians. 

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The story, narrated by Howard Fornoy in the form of a personal journal, recounts the life of his genius younger brother, Robert. Bobby, a child prodigy whose adult interests led him to study a variety of scientific disciplines, discovered a chemical that reduces the aggressive tendencies of humans and other organisms. While doing sociological research in Texas, Bobby used crime statistics to create a sort of topographic map which displayed a geographical pattern of violent crime. Examining the map, Robert noted diminishing levels of crime centered on the town of La Plata. When he arrives to investigate, he finds that this town has never had any violent crime. Bobby is ultimately able to determine that the cause of the non- aggression is the presence of a chemical unique to the town's water supply, a phenomenon that is mentioned in (but had nothing to do with the causations of) King's earlier novel It. Even minimal exposure to the chemical will calm down an angry person or animal, and Bobby has been able to isolate the chemical and reduce it to concentrated form. At a time of international chaos suggestive of an approaching total nuclear war, Bobby and Howard, using the aid of a volcano in Borneo that is set to erupt and blow millions of tons of ash into the atmosphere, disperse a large quantity of this substance throughout the world, in the hope of preventing a catastrophe. Indeed, the effects are quick and expected: a massive decrease in hostilities around the globe. Several months later it is discovered that, to the Fornoys' horror, there was another constant about La Plata that was not studied until after the substance was released. It does eliminate aggression, and increases calm, but it does the job too well. Over time the chemical compound accumulates in the subject's brain, ultimately giving them symptoms resembling dementia or Alzheimer's disease and eventually resulting in death. Howard's journal entries after this point begin to include increasing amounts of grammar, spelling, and other mistakes, eventually devolving into incoherence as Howard succumbs to the effects of the chemical. It is implied the human race will also eventually die out as adults start to forget how to care for newborn children. The style of Howard's entries near the end are reminiscent of those of the character Charlie in Daniel Keyes' book Flowers for Algernon, and of King's own earlier short story, Survivor Type. 

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Miss Emily Sidley is a third grade teacher. On one particular day, while she's teaching spelling, Sidley gets the disconcerting feeling that one of her students is staring at her. She turns around and notices that Robert, the quietest student, has his gaze fixed on her. During the following week, Miss Sidley eventually punishes Robert for her suspicions. Robert taunts her by asking her if she wants to see him "change", which he does (whether it really happened or was a figment of her imagination is not exactly explained) and terrifies the teacher who runs screaming and is nearly run down by a bus. After the incident, Miss Sidley takes a leave of absence. When she returns, Robert taunts her at recess about there being more creatures at school, posing as normal children. They have replaced the real children they look like, who are imprisoned within their doppelgangers. He says of the real Robert: "I can hear him screaming, Miss Sidley. He wants me to let him out." The things Robert is saying soon get to Miss Sidley, and the terrified teacher decides to take drastic measures. She takes out her deceased brother's Luger pistol from a drawer and puts it in her purse. That day at school, she takes twelve of her students to a testing room where sound is well-concealed, and shoots each one dead. Another teacher comes in as Sidley is preparing to shoot a thirteenth student, and Sidley's bad back gives way as the other teacher struggles with her. Miss Sidley is sent to a mental institution after the murders. She works with little preschoolers each day for therapy. One day she feels the fear that drove her to her crime and asks to be removed from the room. As she is taken away, some of the children slyly watch her, implying that they are also doppelgangers. That night, Miss Sidley commits suicide by slashing her throat and her former psychiatrist soon focuses intently on the children. 

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The movie opens with George in a boxcar, reminiscing on the events that occurred. During the Great Depression, the quick-witted George Milton looks after his physically strong yet mentally disabled companion Lennie Small. The two are fleeing from their previous employment as workmen in Weed, California where Lennie was accused of attempted rape when he touched and held onto a young woman and her red dress, prompted by his love of stroking soft things. George and Lennie escape and travel to Soledad, which is near the ranch where they have work. While walking, George catches Lennie petting a dead mouse that he had accidentally killed. Despite Lennie's pleas to keep the dead mouse, George forcibly takes the mouse and throws it away, which causes Lennie to cry. George tries to explain to Lennie that he did so because the mouse "wasn't fresh", and that if he were to find another, fresher mouse, he could pet that one for a while. Lennie, sobbing hysterically, states that "there is no other mouse". As they camp that evening, Lennie asks George to tell him again about their dream, as he has numerous times, and George reluctantly agrees. George describes how the two will one day have their own piece of land, and how Lennie will tend (and pet) their rabbits. George adds, if Lennie should ever get in trouble, he is to return to the brush and wait for him. The following day, the two arrive to work at Tyler Ranch. The ranch Boss becomes suspicious of Lennie's mental condition when Lennie talks, forgetting to keep silent as George had instructed him. In order not to be fired, George lies to the Boss, telling him Lennie is his cousin and that he was kicked in the head by a horse when he was a child. At the bunkhouse, George and Lennie befriend an aged, one-handed ranch-hand, Candy. However, they take an instant dislike to the Boss' son, Curley, who hates people who are bigger than him. Lennie then becomes instantly attracted to Curley's seductive wife, who comes into the bunkhouse to flirt with Lennie and George. George, aware that Curley's wife will bring trouble upon the men due to her sexual allure and persistent flirting, strictly instructs Lennie to keep away and not to look at her. While at a barn waiting for Crooks, an educated and intelligent black man who is bitter and isolated because of his race, George is discovered by Curley's Wife, who attempts to engage in a conversation. However, the attempt is interrupted when Curley enters the barn and confronts George, threatening to beat him to a pulp and have him fired if he catches him fraternizing with his wife again. George is introduced to his work team, Slim, the head of the team, who is greatly respected, and Carlson. When Carlson suggests they shoot Candy's old dog and get Slim to give him one of his pups, Lennie gets excited and asks George for a pup. After a hard day's work, George is proud of Lennie's work load and gets Lennie his puppy. Later, after Carlson kills his dog, Candy offers to pitch in with Lennie and George so they can buy the farm. Just as it seems that the dream is moving closer to reality, Curley comes by and accuses Slim of keeping his wife company as the workers mock Curley back. Curley spots Lennie laughing unintentionally, and he punches him repeatedly, yelling at him to fight back. The other men yell at Curley and encourage Lennie to fight. Lennie grabs Curley's hand and crushes it in his iron grip. George fears for his and Lennie's jobs on the ranch, but Slim gives Curley an ultimatum: Curley tells people his hand was just caught in a machine; if Curley tries to get George and Lennie sacked, Slim will tell everyone how Curley's hand really got crushed, and everyone will laugh at him. Curley, concerned for his reputation, reluctantly agrees to keep quiet. The next day, Lennie and Crooks talk about being lonely, after which Curley's wife again attempts unsuccessfully to engage in conversation, now aware of what really happened to Lennie. Having reached the limit of her patience, the emotionally frustrated wife vows to leave the ranch forever, running to the house in tears. In the barn that evening, Lennie has accidentally killed his puppy and is greatly upset. Curley's wife enters and tries to speak to him, admitting she is lonely and how her dreams of becoming a movie star were crushed, revealing the reason she flirts with the ranch hands. After finding out about Lennie's love of petting soft things, she lets him stroke her hair, but she soon complains and screams because he is pulling too hard. Lennie tries to keep her quiet but accidentally breaks her neck in the process. Realizing he is in trouble, he runs to the brush as George told him to do. Candy finds Curley's wife dead and informs George, and the two realize their dream will never happen. Curley leads a mob which chases after Lennie intending to lynch him. George finds Lennie first and, wanting to spare him a violent and painful death at the hands of the mob, calms Lennie by retelling their dream. As George gets to the part where Lennie gets to tend the rabbits, he shoots Lennie in the back of the head. The scene then returns to George in the boxcar, heading South, remembering their old dream and his memories of Lennie. 

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Police constables Ted Vetter and Robert Farnham are working the night shift at a small station in the London suburb of Crouch End. They discuss the case of Doris Freeman, a young American woman who came in to report the disappearance of her husband, lawyer Lonnie Freeman. Nearly hysterical, Doris arrived in the station speaking of monsters and supernatural occurrences. Doris relates how she and her husband got lost while searching for a potential employer's house in Crouch End. While looking up the employer's address in a phone book, the cab they had hired mysteriously disappears, and the entire neighborhood becomes strangely deserted and alien, with the sole exception of a cat with a scarred face, and two children, one of whom has a deformed hand. After encountering something unseen beyond a hedge, Lonnie becomes unhinged, and eventually disappears while the couple is walking through a tunnel, leaving Doris alone and scared out of her mind as the surroundings become increasingly bizarre and alien; even the night sky no longer shows Earth's stars, but some unknown alien sky. Eventually, Doris once again encounters the two disfigured children, who summon an enormous, hideous, otherworldly being from beneath the ground of Crouch End (implied to be the Lovecraftian goddess Shub-Niggurath). The monster has seemingly consumed Lonnie, alongside countless others whose spirits are now trapped in its body, and whose faces Doris glimpses trapped in the body of the being. After that, Doris remembers nothing else, until she woke up huddled in an entrance way back in the real world. Newcomer Farnham dismisses the story as a delusion caused by mental illness, but Vetter, who has policed Crouch End for decades, is not so sure, remembering a number of similar missing-person cases from years gone by. He speculates about other planes of existence, and of Crouch End perhaps being a location where the divide between our world and an alien, demonic world is somehow lesser. Vetter goes out for a walk and, after contemplating the story for a while, Farnham wonders what has become of him. Leaving the station empty, he walks down the street in search of Vetter, and notices that something seems strangely different about the neighborhood, most notably that the streetlights at the bottom of the street have all gone out. Farnham turns the corner at the bottom of the street and walks out of sight of the station - and is never seen again. Vetter returns from his walk just minutes later and can find no clue to his whereabouts. The official investigation into his vanishing can find no leads, and Vetter reaches retirement age soon after; he dies of a heart attack in his home six months later. Doris returns to America with her children, where she attempts suicide and spends time in a mental hospital, but eventually learns to live with the memory of Crouch End and is released. The story ends with the statement that there are still strange occurrences in Crouch End, and that, very occasionally, people are "...known to lose their way. Some of them lose it forever." 

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Four college students – Randy, Deke, Rachel, and LaVerne – swim to a wooden raft on a remote Pennsylvania lake in October as a final outing before winter. Randy notices a mysterious black substance floating on the surface that appears to chase the girls as they reach the raft. Deke and LaVerne ridicule Randy's suspicions until Rachel remarks on the beautiful bands of colors on the patch's oily surface and touches it. The black patch pulls her into the water, coats her, and rips her to shreds. The horrified trio helplessly watch her be devoured, expanding the size of the black shape. After the initial panic, the three contemplate their next action, realizing they are trapped, since swimming past the black substance is impossible, as it moves too fast. The group told no one else about their outing, so they cannot hope to be rescued. Their only option is to wait and see if the thing leaves. Gazing at the creature's beautifully iridescent surface entrances and disorients the onlookers, nearly causing them to fall off the raft, but they can avoid this by quickly looking away. As Deke prepares to make a desperate jump into the lake to swim to the shore, the creature oozes up through two boards and grabs him by his foot, pulling his leg through the crack in the boards. Deke screams, blood pouring out of his leg, and then his mouth, eyes, and ears. He finally falls dead, and Randy and LaVerne are forced to watch the rest of his corpse dragged through the crack, slowly and laboriously. LaVerne faints, and Randy fights to maintain his sanity. Randy contemplates swimming to shore while the creature eats Deke but realizes that means he would have to leave the unconscious LaVerne behind. After LaVerne regains consciousness, she and Randy take turns sitting, standing, and watching the creature, allowing brief moments of rest for one while the other watches for when the black patch goes under the raft. At night, LaVerne convinces Randy that they should sit and watch it together. As the temperature drops, the two slowly embrace for warmth and gradually begin to have sex, Randy assuring her that he will keep an eye on the creature. However, he is distracted by pleasure and, when LaVerne's hair falls over the side of the raft, the creature tangles itself in her hair and flows over her face. Knowing he will be unable to save her, he kicks her over the side of the raft in a panic, quickening her death. Randy barely gets any sleep as night falls, since the creature flows under the raft every time Randy tries to sit down, forcing him to remain permanently standing. Randy finally breaks down and gives up, acknowledging the hopelessness of the situation. He fantasizes about rescue and sings deliriously, suffering from extreme fatigue. At last, Randy turns to the creature and contemplates if the creature's hypnotizing colors will take the pain out of being consumed. Randy does not look away as the creature's colors shimmer at him. 

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Richard Hagstruh om, a middle-aged writer, is disenchanted with his tyrannical wife Lena, his disrespectful teenage son Seth, and his life in general. His teenage nephew Jonathan suddenly dies in a car accident caused by the writer's abusive brother Roger, who was driving drunk. Roger dies in the crash, along with Jonathan's gentle, kind mother, Belinda. From the boy's effects, the writer is given a word processor, which Jonathan was seemingly in the process of cobbling together from a dozen different sources before he died. When the writer turns it on, the startup message displays "Happy birthday, Uncle Richard", revealing that it was intended as a birthday gift for the main character. At home, Richard discovers that the processor has the mysterious ability to affect reality, but the electronics in the patchwork machine are brittle and will not function for long. While in the middle of testing the processor, Richard's son returns home alongside his obnoxious band members. Overhearing his son badmouthing him, Richard deletes him, which retroactively erases his existence. His bandmates are gone, his room is empty, and every trace of him ever living there is gone. When his wife returns home, he finds she is now even fatter than when she left, the result of never having any children. After she vocally abuses him, he deletes her as well. With the processor now rapidly deteriorating, Richard impulsively rewrites reality, making the nephew his own son, and his sister-in-law his wife, moments before the processor irreparably breaks. He turns around, finding the nephew alive once again, now calling him Dad. 

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The story is the account of an unnamed man being held in prison, recounting his life as a college dropout who met and fell in love with a beautiful girl named Nona, while aimlessly hitchhiking on a snowy winter's night in Maine. That night, the narrator is seduced by Nona into murdering several innocent bystanders. Somewhere near Castle Rock, Nona lures the narrator to a graveyard and morphs into a hideously large rat which laughs at him. It's not immediately clear whether the narrator has encountered a supernatural force or Nona is a figment of his insanity. Later, the narrator is found alone by the authorities, taken into custody, and sentenced to prison where he now writes his tale. Also, the narrator is preparing to commit suicide as he contemplates hearing strange sounds in the walls (not unlike H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Rats in the Walls" (1924), King's own earlier short story, "Jerusalem's Lot" (1978), or King's later novella "1922" (2010)). 

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Renshaw is a professional hit-man, who returns from his assassination of a toy-maker to find a package delivered to his penthouse apartment. The package contains a G.I. Joe Vietnam Footlocker, sent to him by the mother of the toy-maker he had recently killed. When he opens the package, he finds that the toy soldiers are alive with working copies (albeit miniature) of weapons, jeeps, and helicopters. To Renshaw's surprise, the tiny soldiers begin to attack him. Despite his training and experience as a hitman, Renshaw finds himself outnumbered and outgunned, and he cedes control of the living room to the toy soldiers, taking cover in the bathroom. The soldiers pass a piece of paper under the door, demanding his surrender, but Renshaw writes "NUTS!" on the paper and sends it back, prompting a barrage of rocket fire which destroys most of the door. Renshaw eventually plots to destroy the soldiers with a Molotov cocktail constructed from a bottle of lighter fluid, but before the cocktail detonates, a massive blast destroys the entire apartment. Outside in a park below, a couple finds Renshaw's bloody T-shirt, and the other contents of the footlocker are revealed, including one made-to-scale thermonuclear weapon. 

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"Survivor Type" is written as the diary of a disgraced surgeon, Richard Pine (real name: Richard Pinzetti), who, while attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin aboard a cruise ship, is abruptly interrupted when an explosion occurs deep within the ship and it rapidly sinks. After barely escaping the sinking vessel, while encountering a storm in his empty lifeboat, Pine finds himself marooned on a tiny island in the Pacific with very limited supplies and no food. A self-proclaimed "survivor" type, Pine bitterly whittles away the time by using a logbook and pencil as his diary, detailing his rise and fall in the medical profession and his determination to survive this ordeal, get even with the people that "screwed him over," and return to prosperity. Over time, the diary entries documenting Pine's day-to- day activities become more and more disjointed and raving, revealing his slow mental decay and eventual insanity caused by starvation, isolation, and drug use. Determined to hold out for rescue, he goes to horrifying lengths to survive. He eats insects, kelp and seagulls. After breaking his ankle while attempting to signal an airplane, he amputates his own foot, then realizes he has to eat it to survive. He continues to amputate his own limbs to use as a food source, ingesting the heroin as a crude anesthetic during these operations. Although he initially keeps track of the dates (the entries begin January 26), his increasing mental instability causes him to lose perception of the exact number of days passed (finally ending his entries with "Febba" and "Fe/40?"). His last few diary entries, barely comprehensible, indicate that Pine has sliced off and eaten everything below his waist, as well as his ears, and drools uncontrollably as he ponders which body part to consume next. The diary entries end when he cuts off his left hand to eat "lady fingers they taste just like lady fingers"). 

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The two most important planters are Colonel Horacio da Silveira and Colonel Sinhô Badaró. Between their lands lies a large area of virgin forest, which both men have long coveted. Among the numerous people who head to the region in search of wealth are several who come to support one side or the other. Dr. Virgilio Cabral, a lawyer, becomes an ally of da Silveira. Another is Captain João Magalhães, a professional gambler and an opportunist. Among his admirers is Doña Ana Badaró, the colonel's daughter, who is also the heir to the family fortune. Cabral falls in love with Ester, da Silveira's beautiful wife. They know that they will both be killed if the husband finds them out. Cabral is professionally successful, for he finds an old survey of the contested land and registers the title in da Silveira's name. The Badaró family and its supporters retaliate by burning the registry office and all the records. They then hire Magalhães to do a survey for them, even though he knows nothing about surveying. This leads da Silveira to form alliances with other, smaller landholders and eventually emerge victorious after many battles. 

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The lands on which Jerônimo and Jacundina have worked for 20 years change hands, and the new owner expels the settlers. They decide to head for work in the coffee plantations in São Paulo state, taking with them two of their children, three grandchildren, and two of Jerônimo's brothers and their families. Red Field is about the struggle of the displaced for decent conditions and a place to sleep. The travellers suffer from a lack of food and the harshness of the landscape. Half-starved, they finally reach the banks of the São Francisco River, from where they plan to continue their journey by boat. But only four eventually reach the coffee plantations, the rest dying on the way. Those who choose to remain on the arid Northeast plains of Brazil try to get by as best they can. One of the three remaining sons becomes a soldier, one a hired gunman, and one joins the Communist Party. As such, Red Field points to the different alternatives, some more extreme than others, that are open to the people of remote and poor areas: leave, take up religion or crime, or take up revolutionary struggle. A movie of the same name based upon the novel was released in 1964. Seara Vermelha primarily explores the themes of suffering within poverty. Amado also explores the idea of nature and the inhospitality of the Brazilian north eastern wilderness and landscape through which the characters must travel to search for a better life in São Paulo. Finally the theme of revolution and consistent suffering in hopes for a better life in the future is consistent throughout the entire text. The idea that the Brazilian countryside is a place of exhaustive struggle, revolt and pain are clear to interpret, yet Amado also incorporates the importance of the sense of community and loyalty within the context of the rural struggle. These are the ideas upon which the text is constructed. Clearly the book is promoting an anti-capitalist, and anti Estado Novo stance and also painting a socialist picture of communal revolt in the context of economic hardship for the peasant worker. 

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Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is a romantic tale set in the small Brazilian town of Ilhéus during the 1920s. The town is experiencing a record large cacao crop, which makes it a thriving place and gives it an economic upswing and great progress. Still there is a conservative streak among the town folk and they are still relying on old traditions, like violent political takeovers and vengeance against unfaithful women. The book tells two separate but related tales: first, the romance between Nacib Saad, a respectable bar owner of Syrian origin, and his new cook Gabriela, an innocent and captivating migrant worker from the impoverished interior. The gap between the worlds of Nacib Saad and Gabriela make their romance a challenge to the unwritten rules of Ilhéus society and will subsequently change the two of them forever. The second part to this story is about the political struggle between the seasoned cacao plantation owners, with the powerful Bastos clan in pole position, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from Rio de Janeiro. It can be read simultaneously as an unusual, charming love story, a description of the political and social forces at work in 1920s Brazil, a somewhat satirical depiction of Latin American aspirations to "modernity", and a celebration of the local culture and pleasures of Bahia. 

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The book is about what happens after Quincas Wateryell, a popular bum who lives in the slums of Salvador, Bahia, is found dead one morning. Two groups of people compete over Quincas's memory: his new friends and his old family. To his family, led by his daughter Vanda, Quincas Wateryell is Joaquim Soares da Cunha, formerly an "exemplary employee of the State Rent Board." According to Vanda, her father disgraced the family by walking out on them, calling Vanda and her mother Dona Otacilia "vipers" and Vanda's husband Leonardo a "silly ass." Despite all their efforts to hide what really happened, Joaquim Soares da Cunha became Quincas, "vagabond king of the honky-tonks" and "patriarch of the prostitutes." Leonardo attempts to hide it from his coworkers, and Vanda tries to keep it from her friends, but they cannot ignore the reputation that Joaquim Soares da Cunha has earned in the local press as Quincas Wateryell. Now, Vanda, Leonardo, and Quincas's sister Aunt Marocas and brother Eduardo, must tend to the body and give it a proper burial, without attracting too much attention to Quincas and his past. They settle on a simple suit and shoes, but no underwear, because no one will ever see that, and order a casket and candles fit for a church. That night they gather around the casket to keep watch over Quincas, each trying to ignore his leering smile, which reminds them of how much he despised them. Gradually, they go home, leaving Quincas to be watched by his friends from the slum. The cold reception that the news of Quincas's death is received by his family is juxtaposed by the way his friends from the slum receive the same news. His closest friends are Curió, a store barker in Shoemaker's Hollow, who paints his face like a clown to attract people; Bangs, a towering Black who makes his living as a card sharp; Private Martim, a soldier who had been discharged from the army who lived off the generosity of the women he was frequently engaged to; and Breezy, who supported himself catching frogs and selling them to medical researchers for experiments. The four men lead the neighborhood in mourning for Quincas, wailing "Daddy's gone!" That evening, the friends come to pay their last respects and end up taking care of the body after the family leaves. They recall the impact that Quincas had on their lives, and remember how he got his curious nickname: once, after taking a swig from a bottle of what he thought was alcohol, he spat it out and roared: "Waaaaaaater!" They all sob for Quincas, and Private Martim worries about how he will now take care of Quitéria, a prostitute who was Quincas's girlfriend. Left alone at night with the body, the four of them get Quincas to participate in one last party, telling him jokes serving him liquor, and making a gift of a beautiful frog that Breezy had just caught. They then decide to take Quincas on one last trip to the docks to share Cap'n Manuel's delicious fish stew that was Quincas's favorite. On their way to the dock, they pick up a group of prostitutes, including Quitéria, so she can have one last fling with the dead man. Quincas always loved the sea, and after the friends feed him the stew, they take him on board Cap'n Manuel's boat for a fishing excursion. Suddenly a storm tosses the boat, and they rush for shore, but Quincas's body is tossed overboard. It is a fitting end for Quincas, who once made a "solemn oath" that the sea "would be the only witness to his final hour." 

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The novel, set in Salvador, Bahia, opens with the sudden death of Dona Flor's husband, Vadinho, who collapses in the midst of Carnival celebrations. He is dancing a samba in the streets when his heart gives out, a surprise to all as Vadinho had spent his entire life gambling, partying and drinking with no hint of problems. His nights on the town and his two-timing had been supported by sponging off Dona Flor, the owner of a successful cooking school and his demands for money had been a constant worry and cause of sleepless nights for her. The women of the town thought she was well rid of him. But after Vadinho's death, he remained the love of her life and she missed his seductiveness. He was irresistible, and his absence was, for Dona Flor, worse than the long nights when she waited for him to come home. After a period of mourning, Dona Flor attracts another admirer, a local pharmacist, Teodoro. Unlike Vadinho he is a pillar of respectability, kind and considerate. Dona Flor accepts his proposal. While her new husband lacks the passionate sensuality of Vadinho, he compensates by providing a life free of worry. But, on the first anniversary of her marriage, Vadinho returns. He is now a ghost, but has lost none of his old ways. His activities create commotion everywhere, from Dona Flor’s marriage bed to the local nightspots. She is torn between her attraction to the ghost and her desire to continue as the faithful wife of Teodoro, who has no idea what is going on. 

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Banished for promiscuity at the age of 17, Antonieta (Tieta) returns from São Paulo to her native village in the Agreste in Bahia twenty-six years later. Thinking she is now a rich, respectable widow, her family and the village welcome her with open arms. But she is forced to reveal her true identity, as the Madam of São Paulo’s best brothel, in order to save Agreste’s beaches from an ugly and polluting factory development by calling on assistance from her well-connected clients. 

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The novel is set in Brazil in late 1940 and early 1941 at a time when Brazil had close connections to Nazi Germany. The Chief of National Security, nicknamed the Brazilian Goebbels, has the ambition to be chosen as one of the 40 member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. The death of a great Brazilian poet creates a vacancy and the Colonel begins his campaign to be elected. Some of the members can't stand the thought of the peace-loving poet being replaced by a Nazi and form a committee to oppose him. They identify a higher-ranking army officer who is a third-rate author and persuade him to run for the vacant position. Tactics used to encourage the Academy members to support their candidate include intrigue and deception as well as enlisting the help of the dead poet’s former mistresses to help "persuade" some of the Academicians to vote against the Nazi (hence the reference in the title to the “camisole”). However, the plans go awry when their alternative candidate turns into an obnoxious despot even before he is elected. 

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The novel deals with the foundation of a community, Tocaia Grande ("big ambush" in Portuguese), in a fertile agricultural zone in the state of Bahia. The ambush referred to in the title is carried out by Natario de Fonseca, a jagunço in the service of a plantation owner, Colonel Boaventura. Twenty gunfighters assembled by the latter's only political rival are killed, effectively destroying the opponent. Natario fell in love with the location of the ambush and resolved to establish a community there. The novel is really about the growth of the village and the petty criminals, runaway servants and prostitutes who drift in and out. Tocaia Grande only really begins to expand, however, when a family, cheated of its land by a colonel in Sergipe, arrives and begins to plant food crops. Their arrival initiates a colourful blending of Bahian traditions with those of the original inhabitants. The reference to families migrating after being thrown off their land mirrors the central theme of an earlier work by Amado, Red Field. Bandits attack the settlement and are driven off by prostitutes; a flood almost destroys the town; fever kills many. But its final destruction comes because it has remained outside the law as a sort of early anarchist community, with all decisions emerging by unofficial consensus. When the authorities finally decide that they want to control it Tocaia Grande is doomed. The son of Colonel Boaventura, who fell out with Natario because the latter would not work for him after his father's death, sets out to seize the ground with the approval of the state authorities. The story of Tocaia Grande begins and ends in massacre, but not without one final twist. In Showdown, Amado returns to some of his earliest concerns, confronting the historical criminality of Brazilian society, and aiming to show how Brazil has buried its (criminal) past. In fact Showdown is almost an historical continuation of Amado’s novel The Violent Land, first published in 1943. It contains several references to the battles between cacao landowners described in that earlier novel. In addition to Natario, important characters are a Lebanese immigrant, Fadul, owner of the general store - renowned for his stubbornness and physical strength; Castor de Abduim, a handsome blacksmith, whose companion Diva dies in a cholera outbreak; and Bernarda, a young prostitute who becomes Natario's lover. 

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