Harold Parkette is in need of a new lawn mowing service. The summer before, a neighbor's cat was accidentally killed when another neighbor's dog chased it under the mower. Harold has been putting off hiring new help for the summer, but when he sees an ad for a mowing service, he calls. A van reading "Pastoral Greenery" soon pulls up to his home. The man working for the service, a hairy, pot-bellied fellow, is shown the overgrown back lawn and is hired. Harold is enjoying a rest as he reads the paper, wondering about the lawnmower man mentioning Circe, when he hears the lawnmower outside. Startled, he races to the back porch and sees the lawnmower running by itself and the naked lawnmower man following it on all fours and eating the grass. The lawnmower seemingly deliberately chases and kills a mole and Harold faints.

When Harold revives, the lawnmower man explains that this new method, introduced by his boss, grants substantial benefits, and that he makes sacrificial victims of customers who cannot appreciate the process. Harold, though unnerved, allows the lawnmower man to return to work. As soon as the man is out of sight, Harold desperately calls the police, but is interrupted by the lawnmower man, who reveals his boss's name: Pan. The lawnmower briefly chases Harold through his living room before brutally slaughtering him.

When the police arrive, they conclude that Harold was murdered and dismembered by a schizophrenic sex maniac. As they leave, the scent of freshly cut grass hangs strongly in the air.

When Miss Bianca's owner, referred to as "The Boy," becomes sick and is taken to a mountain resort far from the city, where the fresh air will help him get over his illness. Miss Bianca must travel with him and leaves her house, known as the "Porcelain Pagoda," in charge of Bernard, whom she trusts with her life. Shortly after Miss Bianca leaves, Bernard is visited in his bachelor flat by an obnoxious old mouse named Nicodemus, who tells him that he is in a great predicament and hoped to find the legendary Miss Bianca to help him. The problem centers around his owner, an orphaned young lady named Miss Tomasina, who has been kidnapped by mountain bandits under the order of her legal guardian, and with only three days before she comes of age to claim her parents' properties as hers. Bernard decides to take the case, in the process gathering valuable clues and going through several mishaps, like being kept as a pet for a few minutes by a bunch of school girls and almost getting roasted alive by two housemaids. He also meets one of the most curious characters of the whole series, a stuffed bear named Algernon, who proves to be an invaluable ally for the future. Bernard and Algernon eventually travel to a desolate and perilous wasteland known as the "Wolf Range," where their clues had pointed that Miss Tomasina is being kept.

All this time, Miss Bianca daydreams about Bernard and wonders what he is up to. When she arrives home from the mountains, she realises that Bernard is nowhere to be found and worriedly runs to his flat to see if he is not terribly ill, ready to nurse him all night if necessary. Upon questioning Nicodemus and Bernard's neighbors, she hears all about Bernard's quest to rescue Miss Tomasina and really begins to worry about him. It is in this point of the series that readers realise just how important Bernard is to Miss Bianca, and is where she lets go of her formal self and gives in to her love for him, realizing that she just cannot live without Bernard. She refuses to eat or sleep, and becomes very taciturn, thinking of nothing except her dear Bernard, lost in some desolate corner of the Wolf Range, with only a stuffed toy to accompany him.

Meanwhile, Bernard and Algernon eventually find the bandits' hideout and rescue Miss Tomasina right on time. The most hilarious events occur at this point, as well as a very bleak one: the legal guardian of Miss Tomasina dies from a heart attack in the middle of the court.

After all the adventure, Algernon finds a place with another stuffed bear named Nigel and form a stuffed toy club. Bernard returns to Miss Bianca and they sit beside the fountain in her courtyard, leading to one of the few but very touching moments in which Bernard and Miss Bianca's whiskers touch and they feel each other's love aglow. Miss Bianca asks Bernard to please come and live with her, for she feels that they have had enough adventure in their lifetime and wishes to settle down and retire. Bernard, however, has a different feeling. Something inside him tells him that there is still something he must do, one more adventure to live, which leads to the final part of the Rescuers series, ''Bernard into Battle''. And with this scene, the story ends.

Category:1977 British novels Category:1977 children's books Category:British children's novels Category:Fictional mice and rats Category:Heinemann (publisher) books Category:Children's novels about animals Category:British children's books Category:Male characters in literature Category:Literary characters introduced in 1977 Category:Novels by Margery Sharp

After arriving in the Earth's solar system, the Conquest Fleet's essential personnel are awakened from cold sleep after a 20-year journey originating from Tau Ceti II. Fleetlord Atvar, busy making the final preparations for the invasion of Earth, expects a rapid victory over the primitive beings populating the planet. He is interrupted by a communications officer, who reports that radio emissions are emanating from Earth. Atvar refuses to believe the report since the most recent intelligence, gathered from a probe that visited Earth in the 12th century AD, indicates that the inhabitants are a pre-industrial species.

The Conquest Fleet reaches Earth orbit in December 1941 and begins surveying the planet. It is shocked to find that in the course of only 800 years, the inhabitants have moved from a primitive agricultural society to an industrial civilization. The Race's technology has hardly changed in more than 50,000 years, and other known intelligent species are similarly slow to evolve.

After six months of reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, Atvar consults in May 1942 with the Shiplords of the Conquest Fleet. The troops have been awakened from cold sleep and are prepared to commence with military operations. However, Atvar can cancel the invasion. Unwilling to call off the attack and face the Emperor back on Home, Atvar orders the assault to begin. (It can be assumed that we are living in an alternate timeline in which Atvar called off the attack and the Conquest Fleet departed and so no one on Earth is aware that it was there.)

Soon, the Race detonates several atomic bombs above the Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to disrupt human communications, and the attack begins.

On the night of May 30, only hours after detonating the nuclear bombs, the Race's forces attack human aircraft and ground vehicles in and around designated landing zones. Once the sites are secured, troop ships begin landing and disgorging ground forces. The Race simultaneously establishes bases on every continent except Antarctica.

Latin America and Africa are overrun almost immediately, with Mexico the only one resisting the invaders but falling a week after fierce fighting. Landing bases in Florida, Illinois, Idaho, and New York State cause widespread panic and chaos in the United States. The Race's forces establish bases in occupied Poland, cutting Nazi Germany off from the bulk of its forces in the Soviet Union and resulting in a massive German retreat westward. The United Kingdom's air forces are battered from alien bases in Spain and France. The Soviet Union must deal with enemy strongholds in Ukraine, Outer Mongolia, and Siberia. Everywhere, humankind falls back in the face of a seemingly-unstoppable nemesis.

Hostilities between the Axis and Allied powers end almost immediately as a result of military expediency, rather than a sign of genuine co-operation. With the Race's forces battering the human armies into submission, no resources can be expended on human rivalries. The unsettling reality of the new balance of power is emphasized by the fact that in the early days of the fighting, only Germany is able to battle the aliens with any measure of success. That is only natural since Germany has been at war longer than the other major powers and has an economy specifically geared toward war. However, Americans are nauseated by the idea of fighting on the same side as Hitler while the Soviets are not quite so sure that the Germans can be trusted, even in the face of an alien invasion.

After the initial assault, the Race's troops come to a virtual standstill. It is not so much human resistance that keeps them from advancing as much as its tendency to deliberate their options before acting. Mankind takes advantage of the respite provided to wage localized counterattacks, nearly all of which are unsuccessful. In the process, it finds that the Race lacks tactical combat initiative and can be easily lured into traps. However, its advanced technology makes it difficult to exploit that weakness. The Race also discovers that its orbital atomic detonations had little or no effect on the human militaries. It had thought that the resulting electro-magnetic pulse would short out any advanced technology of humans, but it soon realizes that humans do not yet possess silicon computer chips. Most human electronics, such as radios, use vacuum tubes, which are less efficient but also more resistant to electro-magnetic interference.

Hitler takes advantage of the brief lull in the fighting in an artillery unit in Ukraine to attack an alien base using railroad guns. The German battery manages to destroy two of the Race's ships (the ''67th Emperor Sohrheb'' and the ''56th Emperor Jossano''), including the one that carries the bulk of the Conquest Fleet's atomic stockpile. The resulting explosion sends chunks of plutonium flying across several acres. Soviet partisans take notice of the care with which the Race goes about collecting the strange metal.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Major Heinrich Jäger manages to destroy one of the Race's landcruisers and a troop carrier, and another panzer unit and infantry destroy a second landcruiser but at the cost of his entire panzer company. Narrowly escaping from the battle, he is found by Lieutenant Ludmila Gorbunova, who flies him back to the airfield in which she is stationed. From there, Jäger is sent to Moscow where he spends several weeks as a guest of the Soviet government, not an official prisoner-of-war or an ally. Finally, he is asked to take part in a joint German-Soviet operation in Ukraine that is aimed at recovering some of the plutonium.

The ''ad hoc'' band of Soviet partisans and displaced German soldiers that is charged with the assignment manages to hijack a shipment of plutonium. In accordance with negotiated arrangements, the load is divided into two, and they go their separate ways. Jäger is given a horse and is forced to ride across the Ukrainian steppe and enemy-occupied Poland to reach Germany with the precious metal. Somewhere between the towns of Chernobyl and Hrubieszów, Jäger is ambushed by Jewish partisans. Though they are nominally allies of the Race, the Jews recognize the threat that the aliens pose to mankind. They take half the plutonium in Jäger's possession and let him return to Germany with the other half. The Jewish partisans send their commandeered plutonium to England, where it is subsequently shipped to the United States.

Upon his arrival in Germany, Jäger is promoted to the rank of colonel and awarded the German Cross in Gold at a ceremony held in Berchtesgaden, Hitler's Bavarian resort. While Jäger enjoys a well-deserved furlough there, Vyacheslav Molotov arrives to consult with Hitler on the conduct of the war. The Soviet ambassador is flown to Bavaria by Lieutenant Gorbunova, to Jäger's surprise. Jäger and Gorbunova grow close during their short time together.

In an attempt to reduce human resistance, Atvar orders the use of atomic weapons on Washington, DC, and Berlin, hoping to persuade the Americans and the Germans to surrender. Berlin is hit first, primarily in retaliation for the destruction of the Race's ships in Ukraine. Atvar regrets the need to atomize human territory, mostly because Earth has much less land than sea, but he sees the display of power as necessary since Germany fields the strongest human army. The Race is less dismayed by the attack on Washington, DC, since it is an administrative and communications center, with few industrial and commercial resources. Furthermore, Atvar rationalizes that most of the radioactive fallout will drift harmlessly out into the Atlantic. Instead of breaking the human will to resist, the attacks inspire both nations to fight harder and to hasten production of their own atomic weapons.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Jens Larssen is forced to travel to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where the US government has set up a temporary capital after the bombing of Washington, DC. Larssen warns the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, that the US Army must defend Chicago at all costs since the metallurgical laboratory stationed at the University of Chicago is working feverishly to develop atomic power, which might be the only chance of humanity to defeat the Race. Marshall assures Larssen that holding Chicago is a key component of the army's strategy. Satisfied, Larssen makes his way back to the university.

On his way back, Larssen finds that the Race has captured most of Ohio and Indiana. He carefully makes his way through and around enemy lines. In the process, he spends several weeks in one of the Race's prison camps but manages to convince it that he is no threat to them. Found by US troops, Larssen explains that he is a physicist on important government business. After several interrogations, Larssen is granted an audience with General George S. Patton, who explains that a major military operation is currently being planned to keep the Race out of Chicago. Since he is so valuable to the war effort and because of the dangers involved, Patton refuses to allow Larssen to proceed to Chicago until the Americans have secured the city.

As the winter of 1942 begins, the Race's attacks begin to lose momentum. It is completely unprepared for the kind of winter weather that it faces on Earth. On their home planet, snow is extraordinarily rare outside the laboratory, and much of the land is sandy desert. As soon as the first blizzard hits Illinois, a handful of American fighters and bombers, hoarded for the last desperate strike, move against the Race's positions in western Indiana and southern Wisconsin. Massive artillery barrages follow. Finally, American infantry and tank units, under Patton in the east and General Omar Bradley in the north, move toward their objective, Bloomington, Illinois. Although human M4 Shermans and P-51 Mustangs are no match for the Race's landcruisers and killercraft, the alien forces are so badly outnumbered and the weather so inhospitable that they are compelled to retreat. The US troops move rapidly and manage to encircle some of the Race's slower formations in a ring of armor and to destroy them in detail. Mankind scores its first major success against the nemesis from the stars.

As the human counteroffensive succeeds in liberating most of northern Illinois, Fleetlord Atvar and the Conquest Fleet's Shiplords begin to grow worried about the war's progress. When the invasion began, they were confident that their technological superiority would guarantee a rapid victory, even in the face of expansive human industrial power. While it has managed to subdue South America, Africa, and Australia, the Race still faces stiff resistance in North America, Europe, and Asia six months after the attack started. As the fighting continues, the Race's more advanced weaponry, such as guided missiles, anti-armor rockets, landcruisers, killercraft, and helicopters, are being destroyed in ever greater numbers. While simple weapons, such as rifles, bullets, artillery shells, and mortars, can be produced in captured human factories, the longer the war continues, the more the technological gap between the Race and mankind will shrink. Atvar is informed by his intelligence officers that human vehicles are dependent upon petroleum for fuel and that striking at refineries that process oil might reduce the combat effectiveness of humanity's armies. Atvar orders an airborne attack upon the Romanian oilfields at Ploiești, but the bombing raid meets with limited success and costs the Race valuable killercraft.

As 1942 nears its end, Patton and Bradley march their forces into Bloomington, and Jens Larssen arrives in Chicago to find the city in ruins. He makes his way through the rubble, encounters a civilian populace in severe disarray, and heads for the University of Chicago. There, Larssen is informed by a custodian that the metallurgical laboratory has evacuated the campus and is relocating to Denver. Like the war, Larssen's journey has a long way to go.

Set in an unspecified South American country, the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast. As a not-so-subtle pretext to get Hosokawa to invest in the country, famous American soprano Roxane Coss is scheduled to perform as the highlight of the party.

Near the end of the party, members of a terrorist organization break into the house, intending to take the President of the country hostage. When they realize the President is not in attendance, the terrorist group decides to take the entire party hostage. After determining they have too many hostages, the terrorists decide to release all of the hostages except those they deem most likely to return a large ransom.

Two major romantic relationships develop as the standoff drags on and serve as the backdrop to the rest of the story. The first is between Coss and Hosokawa, who develop a deep bond even though they do not speak each other's language and thus cannot communicate verbally. The second relationship is between the translator Gen and the young terrorist Carmen, who must keep their love a secret. The two lovers meet in the china closet every night.

At the end of the novel, the government breaks into the house and kills all the terrorists. All of the hostages are freed except for Hosokawa, who dies in the struggle.

In an epilogue that takes place some years later, former hostages Simon Thibault and his wife meet with Gen and Roxane, who are getting married in Italy.

Taking place in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, this is the story about three beautiful, young females named Sonya, Kei, and Lukish. They are in an extremely popular girl band called The Pussy Cats which is managed by an old hag.

However, this is only a cover up. In actuality, the girls are the notorious female assassins known as The Midnight Panther, who will kill men for money by first sleeping with them and executing them in their own unique manner. The old hag is, in reality, a witch who arranges the transactions.

However, when the girls receive a commission to kill the despotic king who is murdering his subjects, one of them takes the job personally and requests the honor.

The player takes on the role of a U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal with the callsign Gladiator 2. The Lebanese Prime Minister becomes ill, and must temporarily leave office to recover. Seeing a prime chance to control Lebanon, Syria and Iran begin supplying local militant groups. As things escalate, Marines are inserted into Beirut for the third time.

Enemy factions

'''Militia''': The militia are a group of former Lebanese army personnel working together with Syrian troops. They are led by Akhbar al-Soud, a former army officer and arms dealer. '''Atash Movement''': The Atash movement is an organisation of extremist Islamists, supported by Iran. They are led by Tarik Qadan, a powerful Muslim cleric, who may be a puppet of the Iranian government. '''Syrian Army''': The Syrian Army occupies a large part of Beirut, and is equipped with heavy weapons and APCs. They are led by General Bakr, a former Yemeni army officer and suspected terrorist. '''Iranian special forces''': A small group of highly trained commandos, working with the Atash. They are led by Adullah bin Katan, an army Major and terrorist supporter.

''Theft'' is the story of Michael "Butcher" Boone, an Australian artist whose career is having an early and comprehensive twilight. The novel alternates between the viewpoint of Butcher himself, and that of his "damaged two hundred and twenty pound brother" Hugh. "There is always Hugh," Butcher says, "and you cannot take a slash or park the truck without considering him." As the novel opens, Butcher is fresh out of jail for robbing his ex-wife of his own paintings, paintings that became hers when the marriage ended. Exiled to a remote house owned by a fussy former patron, Butcher is trying to get his career back on track, avoid his creditors and manage Hugh, when - on a stormy, flooding evening - he receives a visit from the mysterious Marlene, described by Hugh as "a GAMINE with tiny boobies and a silk dress you could have fitted in your pocket with your hanky".

Through marriage to Olivier Leibovitz, Marlene is the holder of the droit moral, the hereditary right to authenticate paintings, in this case those of Olivier's dead father, Jacques Leibovitz. Somehow, Butcher and Hugh's farmer neighbour has recently acquired a Leibovitz of mysterious provenance, and Marlene arrives, a vision in Manolo Blahniks tramping through knee-deep mud, to put a validating stamp on it, immediately sending its worth into the stratosphere.[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/may/27/hayfestival2006.hayfestival "The sacred in the profane" by Patrick Ness, ''The Guardian'', 27 May 2006]

''Ripper'' takes place in New York City in the year 2040. It opens with the investigation of the recent murder of Renee Stein, the third victim of a serial killer known as "The Ripper", largely out of the modus operandi similarity to Jack the Ripper. The player assumes the role of Jake Quinlan, a reporter for the Virtual Herald, whom The Ripper sends messages to detailing his murders (an act attributed to Jack the Ripper, although no letters have been proven to come from him). Along with the police (whose investigation is headed by Detective Vincent Magnotta), Quinlan is seeking The Ripper's true identity.

After investigating Renee Stein's murder, Quinlan receives a message from The Ripper, who warns Quinlan that his girlfriend, Catherine Powell, will be the next victim, as she has gotten too close to discovering his identity. Quinlan manages to find Powell still alive, but in a coma "deeper than anyone thought possible." Cybersurgeon Claire Burton at the Meta-Cognition Center of the Tribeca Center Hospital manages to retrieve a distorted image of Powell's attacker, but requires additional information from Quinlan to make it clearer. (This is also a reference to Jack the Ripper, as the police hypothesized that they might be able to get an image of the killer from the retinas of the victims.) He provides this through investigating into what Powell was on to in her investigation and homes in on three possible suspects for The Ripper's murders. In order to transmit this information into Powell's brain directly, he enlists the help of Joey Falconetti, a hacker who specializes in interfacing directly with the human brain.

Quinlan's investigation leads him to discover that all of The Ripper's victims and all of those associated with the investigation of The Ripper (except Quinlan himself) were involved with an old gaming group known as the Web Runners, who played a game based on the Jack the Ripper mystery. The last session of this game somehow caused one of the players to die in real life. The player that died happened to be Catherine Powell's mother. Assistance from a pathologist named Vic Farley reveals that The Ripper's murders were done by placing a code into a victim's brain while in cyberspace that caused their internal body pressure to rise to a point of explosion, which Farley experiences immediately after providing his explanation. Quinlan also finds a cyberspace weapon developed by a murdered cyberarchitect named Hamilton Wofford, designed specifically to kill The Ripper inside a virtual recreation of the historic Whitechapel district of London, where the Jack the Ripper murders took place. After assembling the weapon and gathering the necessary protection from The Ripper's weapon, Quinlan enters cyberspace, kills The Ripper, and manages to escape the virtual Whitechapel in time to escape its destruction.

The Ripper can be one of four possible suspects: Joey Falconetti, Claire Burton, Vincent Magnotta, or Catherine Powell. With each play-through, certain clues and actual identity of The Ripper vary, though the bulk of the story is unchanged, and clues indicating the guilt of all four suspects will appear regardless of who the killer is. For instance, Catherine Powell experiences mysterious surges in brain wave activity that coincide with all the Ripper's murders regardless of whether or not she actually is the Ripper, and no alternative explanation for these surges is provided. However, the changes in the game's story and puzzles are limited to the game's third act- after Farley's death.

As he tries to access an ATM to retrieve his last twenty bucks, Jason “JINX” Taylor runs into a snag – the transaction fee will overdraw him, and he cannot get his money out of the bank. Jinx fumes about this and other hidden charges which complicate his life…as we realize that he is locked in a bank vault…with the beautiful but tied-up Jessica, her apparently a hostage. Jessica is kept gagged with tape on her mouth. But, as Jinx rails against corporations and how they stack the deck, we realize that the situation is very different from what it appears: in fact, it is Jessica, not Jinx, who is robbing the bank. She is aligned with Simon, who leads an armed team inside the branch. However, Jinx’s entry into the scenario upsets the heist, leading him and Jessica to be inadvertently locked inside the vault. In addition, Jinx has called the cops, who, led by Officer DeGepse, have surrounded the bank. Jinx makes contact with Simon by cell phone, and the situation becomes clearer, as he realizes Jessica has access to a special inside-the-vault computer and its codes…she and only she can open the vault door. Simon becomes increasingly upset when he is unable to strong-talk Jinx into getting the vault open (so the robbers can clear out the safe deposit boxes). And DeGepse is equally frustrated by the standoff, particularly when it is Jinx, not he, who seems to gain control over the situation.

As things progress, Jinx realizes that he and Jessica actually think very much alike – they both feel used – and this new kinship leads them to plot an escape. A call comes in from Nick, the true mastermind of the robbery, and Jinx and Jessica realize that Nick needs them to issue a PIN for him to access funds which have been skimmed (from fees, of course) over the course of years. With Simon increasingly unstable, Jinx is able to manipulate both him and DeGepse while also making a deal with Nick to provide a PIN (controlled by Jinx and Jessica) to go with Nick’s account information. Jinx manages to talk both cops and robbers into letting Jessica and him out, as freed hostages, and in the ensuing chaos, they slip away, to meet Nick and escape with their cut of the cash…

The story opens with the unnamed narrator and his party, boating on the Darling River, coming across a young man on horseback driving some horses along the bank. The young man asks if the water is too deep to cross, to which a joker in the party replies that it is deep enough to drown him. The young man continues up the river.

The following day, a funeral gathers at a corner pub, the deceased being the young horsemen encountered the previous day. The anonymous man is a union member, however, little more is known about him. Though the "defunct" is of a different religion to the majority of the town, they, nonetheless, organise a respectful burial as "unionism is stronger than creed."

"Drink, however, is stronger than unionism," and, by the time the hearse passes by the pub, "more than two-thirds of the funeral were unable to follow."

The narrator and his party respectfully follow the dwindling funeral procession, observing the conflict between the Bushfolks' respect for the dead, and their own personal comfort. The burial itself is sombre, yet emotionless. Nobody actually knew the deceased, and so it is impossible to feel sad for him. It is heard that the young man's name is James Tyson, though this is "simply the name he went by." The narrator does eventually hear the man's real name, but he has already forgotten it.

George and Ann Farber, their son Georgie, and their dog Lucky arrive at their lake house. Their next-door neighbor, Fred, is seen with two young men, Peter and Paul. They find Fred reacting somewhat awkwardly. Fred and Paul come over to help put the boat into the lake. After they leave, George and Georgie stay outside by the lake, tending to their boat. Georgie asks his father why Fred was behaving so strangely.

While Ann is in the kitchen cooking, Peter visits and asks to borrow some eggs. Ann gives him the eggs but Peter clumsily drops them. Feeling a little annoyed after Peter accidentally knocks her phone into the sink filled with water, Ann gives him another four eggs and he leaves. Soon afterwards she hears Lucky barking and finds Peter and Paul inside together. Lucky had jumped on Peter, causing him to break the second batch of eggs. Paul asks her to try out one of the golf clubs outside, and she begrudgingly agrees. In the boat, George and Georgie hear Lucky barking hysterically when suddenly the barking stops. Peter and Paul request more eggs, and Ann becomes frustrated, but George arrives and tries to force the men to leave, slapping Paul. In retaliation, Peter breaks one of George's legs with the golf club. The two young men then take the family hostage.

Paul guides Ann on a hunt to find the family's dog, which he had killed with George's golf club. When their neighbors, the Thompsons, visit, Ann passes Paul off as friends, just like what Fred had done before. After returning to the house, the Farbers are forced to participate in a number of sadistic games in order to stay alive, in hope that Fred would visit them as scheduled so they might be rescued. The two young men try to "apologize" to George, but when neglected by George and Ann, they beat them.

Paul asks if George or Ann wants to bet that they will be alive by 9:00 in the morning, and says that he and Peter are betting they will not be. Paul frequently ridicules Peter's weight and lack of intelligence, and describes a number of contradicting stories of Peter's past, although no definitive explanation is ever presented as to the men's origins or motives.

During the "games", Peter and Paul put Georgie's head in a bag and ask Ann to strip naked. Georgie is nearly suffocated until George asks Ann to follow the men's instructions. When released from the bag, Georgie escapes the house with the help of his parents. He goes to the house of Fred, where he discovers bloody corpses. Meanwhile, Paul pushes Ann, whose hands have been tied by tape behind her back, onto a sofa that is some space away from George, and ties her ankles by tape as well before going out to search for Georgie, leaving Peter to watch over the Farbers. Ann asks why they do not directly kill them, and Peter answers that they should not forget the fun of the games. When Peter goes to kitchen to get eggs, Ann jumps to George but George fails to untape her before Peter comes back, and Peter beats her and breaks the eggs again. Ann begs Peter to let them go, but he refuses. Georgie finds a shotgun in the house of Fred and Paul tells him to go ahead and shoot him with it, but the gun fails to go off. Paul returns him to the living room, and gives the shotgun to Peter.

The men play a new game, saying whoever gets counted out will be shot. While Paul is in the kitchen getting something to eat, Georgie panics and runs, which results in Peter shooting and killing him. Paul berates Peter for being trigger-happy, and the two men decide to briefly leave. George and Ann are grief-stricken over their loss, but they eventually resolve to survive. Ann is able to free herself and flee the house while George desperately tries to make a call on the malfunctioning phone. Ann fails to find help, only to be re-captured by Peter and Paul, who bring her back to the house.

After stabbing George, they tell Ann to say a prayer before making a choice for her husband; a painful and prolonged death with the "little" knife, or a quick and brutal death with the "big" shotgun. While Paul is talking, Ann seizes the shotgun on the table in front of her and kills Peter. An enraged Paul grabs the shotgun and starts looking for the television remote. Upon finding it, he rewinds the last occurrences back to a moment before Ann grabs the shotgun, breaking the fourth wall. On the "do over", Paul snatches the shotgun away before she can grab it and admonishes her, saying she is not allowed to break the rules.

Peter and Paul kill George and take Ann, bound and gagged, out onto the family's boat. Ann tries to free herself but is caught by Paul and Peter. Around eight o'clock in the morning, Paul nonchalantly pushes her into the water to drown, thus winning their bet. They knock on the door of the Thompsons' house and request some eggs. Paul glances at the camera with a smirk.

In southern Arizona Territory, hired gun-turned-marshal Chris Adams rescues his old friend, former bounty hunter Jim Mackay, from an ambush. Jim asks Chris to help him defend the Mexican border town of Magdalena from De Toro and his bandits, but Chris is reluctant.

Chris refuses his new wife Arrila’s request to release teenager Shelly Donavan, jailed for robbery. Chris meets with newspaper writer Noah Forbes for a story on Chris' eventful career.

The next morning, loading prisoners onto the Tucson prison wagon, Chris decides to free Donavan. Chris meets Noah to discuss his exploits, as Donavan celebrates his release with Hank and Bob Allen. Donavan leads the brothers in a bank robbery just as Arrila meets Chris and Noah outside. Wounding Chris, Donavan abducts Arrila and escapes with the Allens. Revived two days later, Chris sets off in search of Arrila, accompanied by Noah.

In the desert, Noah and Chris find Arrila dead. Chris tracks down the Allens and demands to know Donavan's whereabouts. Confident that Chris will take them back to town for trial and not shoot them on the spot, Hank refuses to talk. Chris shoots him. Bob then decides to talk and reveals that Donavan has fled to Mexico, and admits Arrila was raped and tortured before her murder. Bob pleads for his life, insisting he did not join in the assault, but Chris shoots him as Noah looks on in shock.

Chris rides to the Mexican border and finds Jim with armed farmers from Magdalena, hoping to ambush De Toro. Jim reveals that Donavan rode by the previous day, and Chris again refuses to join, telling Jim he is badly outnumbered and will be slaughtered. Chris and Noah track Donavan through the desert, only to find themselves circling back toward Jim's location. Hearing distant gunfire, they find the farmers dead with no sign of Jim. Chris assumes the women of Magdalena have been left unprotected and Jim will have returned there, and rides into Mexico with the uncertain Noah.

At the mission in Magdalena, Chris kills three bandits and find the townswomen, who have been beaten and raped. Laurie Gunn explains that the women were defenseless against De Toro and his more than forty men who arrived the previous day. Although Laurie and the women plead with Chris to help them escape before De Toro's return, he points out there are no horses and a desert trek would kill them. Realizing that the American Cavalry will not cross the border, Chris and Noah ride to Tucson, promising to return. Not far from Magdalena, the pair come upon the bodies of Jim, Donavan, and the remaining farmers.

In Tucson, Chris meets with the governor then travels to the prison, asking the warden to pardon the last five prisoners he arrested: Pepe Carrall, Walt Drummond, Scott Elliott, Mark Skinner, and former Confederate captain Andy Hayes. Chris tells the criminals he will sign their pardons if they join his posse, and they grudgingly agree. Loaded with supplies, the group departs for De Toro's hacienda. The men overcome the guards and loot the home, and Chris takes De Toro's woman captive. Riding to Magdalena, Chris warns the men not to escape.

Chris designs an elaborate trap for the bandits. The women and construction worker Elliott help prepare several ditches, barbed wire fences, and hidden barriers. After training the women in reloading the weapons, the town awaits De Toro's arrival. The bandits attack, but the town’s initial assault with long-range guns sends the outlaws into disarray. The defenders retreat to the second line of defense; protected by Elliott's clever fences, they dynamite many of the bandits. Walt, Hayes and Elliott are killed and Noah wounded as the group retreats behind another rigged barricade.

At the mission where De Toro's woman and the town children are hiding, Chris tells Laurie his last resort: they will lure the bandits inside and blow up the church. Pepe is killed in De Toro's renewed assault. Hearing the bandits approach, Laurie prepares to dynamite the mission and frees De Toro's woman, who rushes outside into the gunfight and is accidentally shot by De Toro. Momentarily stunned, De Toro is killed by Chris, and the remaining bandits flee.

Chris, Noah, and Skinner decide to start new lives in Magdalena.

''Viva Cuba'' takes place in Cuba and the two main characters are Malú, who comes from a middle-class family and is raised by her single mother, and Jorgito, whose mother is a poor socialist and his father an alcoholic. The film uses the two children from two different backgrounds to show how these children symbolize the people of Cuba and whether or not they can predict the outcomes of the future.

What neither woman recognizes is the immense strength of the bond between Malú and Jorgito. Following the death of Malú's grandmother, the children find out that Malú's mother is planning to leave Cuba to go to another country, where she has a boyfriend, Jorgito suggests they run away and travel to the other side of the island to find Malú's father and persuade him against signing the forms that would allow Malú and her mother to leave the country, followed by him saying that if they were to hug strongly, they would be inseparable, even if Malú were to leave Cuba.

Both children are seen preparing for the journey as their social statuses greatly contrast. Malú's clean clothes and her plastic drinking cup at breakfast and her toys are compared to Jorgito's uncleaned clothes and the use of a metal cup for breakfast. The two children embark on their journey, avoiding the police sent to search for the two of them. The disappearance of both children bring their mothers closer together in their grief.

Jorgito loses the map he brought with him and tensions rise between the two children. Not to mention, Malú sang on stage at a festival that was broadcast over the air. The kids' parents saw Malú on TV and had the implication that Malú and Jorgito were, in fact, traveling towards the lighthouse. Jorgito then becomes infuriated with Malú.

They insult each other; Malú brings up Jorgito's social status, and Jorgito calls Malú's mother a slut. However, they were stuck with each other for the rest of the journey. One day, Malú gets hungry, and the two kids find a tent containing tons of food and goods, although they don't know who it belongs to. The kids fight over who gets to eat what food until the owner of the tent arrives, asking why they were trespassing. Malú explains their story, while she and Jorgito also try to explain that they didn't want to be friends anymore. The owner of the tent tells them that true friends always stay friends, even if they fight, causing Malú and Jorgito's bond to reform.

When they reach the lighthouse where Malú's father works, the forms had already been signed before she could persuade him otherwise. The parents (minus Malú's father), having reached the lighthouse before the kids got there, begin to beat their children and argue among each other. The two children run away from the fight and console each other on a cliff, as a large wave washes over them and the film ends.

A fiddler is walking through the forest and wants some company because he is bored. He grabs his violin and the music echoes through the forest, soon a wolf comes through the thicket. The musician was not waiting for the wolf, but the wolf would like to learn to play the violin. The musician tells the wolf to do everything he says and he takes him to an old oak tree, which is hollow inside and split open in the middle. The wolf has to put his front paws in the slit, the musician grabs a stone and fixes the wolf's paws. The musician goes on and plays another tune, then a fox comes.

The musician was not waiting for the fox either, but the fox also wants to learn to play the violin. The fox, too, must do everything the musician tells him to do, and they set off together. They come to a path with tall bushes on either side, where the musician bends down a hazel tree and puts his foot on the top. He does the same with a small tree on the other side of the path, and he ties the left front leg to the left trunk. The right front leg is tied to the right trunk, and then he releases the tree limbs. The fox flies into the air, where it remains floating, and the musician continues on the path. After a while, he plays his fiddle again, and then a hare comes.

The musician was not waiting for the hare either, the hare also wants to learn how to play the violin. The musician also tells the hare to do everything he is told and they set off together like an apprentice with his master. At a clearing in the woods, the musician ties a long rope around the hare's neck and ties the other end to a tree. The hare must run around the tree twenty times, after which the hare is trapped. The wolf, meanwhile, has freed himself and runs furiously after the musician. The fox sees him and shouts that the musician has tricked him, whereupon the wolf pulls down the tree limbs and bites the ropes. Together they set out to take revenge, finding the tied hare and freeing him as well.

Meanwhile, the musician made music again, and this time a woodsman came. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to stop his work and comes to the musician with his axe. The musician is happy to finally see a human being instead of a wild animal, and as he plays for the woodcutter, the three animals come running. The woodcutter stands in front of the musician with his axe and says that they will have to deal with him if they want to do anything to the musician. The animals get scared and run into the forest, after which the musician plays another tune for the woodcutter as thanks for his help.

The boy agrees to work for Glad, a benevolent pimp who specializes in "boy-girls." Glad gives him a raccoon penis bone, which he wears as an amulet for protection, good fortune, and sexual prowess as well as to signify his status as one of Glad's boy-girls. He is given the name Cherry Vanilla, but on his first date with a trucker he uses the name Sarah.

Hoping to outperform his rejecting mother and become the greatest lot lizard of them all, he goes off on his own into the wilds of West Virginia and is eventually taken up by a very powerful and very dangerous pimp known as Le Loup. Unaware that this new girl is a boy, Le Loup uses him not to turn tricks but as an object of veneration – and donations – with luck-conscious and magic-fearing truckers. Eventually Saint Sarah's mystique fades, and when he is revealed to be a boy Le Loup forces him to work alongside other boy prostitutes and live in captivity with them. After an agonizing year, Glad is finally able to rescue him from Le Loup, but the boy who returns is no longer capable of rejoining Glad's boy-girls; his mother Sarah is long gone as well. In an afterword, the boy who is now a grown man tells the reader that his therapist, Dr. Owens has suggested he write about his experiences as to “better his recovery”. The boy closes the story by revealing that Sarah was found in an abandoned trailer after shooting herself. He stops to wonder why he ever tried to be like her, before realizing that the only thing that mattered was that he wasn't.

'''''Sarah''''' uses narrative elements and characterizations that also occur in the short stories of ''The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things'' (2001). But unlike ''The Heart'' or ''Harold's End'' (2004), '''''Sarah''''' is rich in humor and more fabulistic in its characters and situations. These qualities temper the harsh themes this novel shares with the other JT LeRoy books: abuse, exploitation, abandonment, betrayal, loss. Like them, it also explores the dynamics of identity and gender and employs the plot situation of having one's hidden life exposed and the shaming, hostility, and violence that ensue. Poet and critic Stephen Burt called Sarah "a work of art" and "a book about the risks and thrills of false identity," which derives its power "from the glee with which it refuses realism: multiple subjects (sexual trauma, coming out, rural poverty) that American fiction usually depicts with flat-footed seriousness instead come together for a Technicolor romp."

Calwyn is a young priestess who chants the ice chants of Antaris. She lives inside Antaris, a community located among mountains, which is enclosed by an ice wall. The priestesses must maintain the wall with their chantments; that is, by singing certain songs, the knowledge of which is passed down to them through the temple. Nine powers can be achieved by such songs, though never by the same chanter. Legend has it that a Singer of All Songs will someday be born, who will know and use the songs of all the effects.

During one of the nine days of Strengthening, in which the priestesses sing to maintain the Wall, it is breached by a strange traveler, called Darrow. Calwyn attempts to approach him; but when he sings in a low tone, Calwyn feels as though a hand is clutching her tunic and keeping her away. He is unable to maintain this and collapses because of an injury he had suffered, whereupon Calwyn brings Darrow back to the priestess' dwellings. The psychokinetic effect is revealed by the High Priestess to be of a chantment, the Power of Iron, which controls inanimate matter. Calwyn befriends Darrow, who now has a scar on his eyebrow and a permanent limp. Samis, a greedy sorcerer who wants to become the Singer of All Songs and rule the world of Tremaris, follows Darrow to Antaris. Darrow and Calwyn manage to flee by jumping into the river that flows under the Wall.

They cross many miles to reach Kalysons, where Darrow meets his friends Tonno and Xanni to ask them for help. All four sail on the boat ''Fledgewing'' to Mithates, where they seek the help of a chanter who can help them defeat Samis. In Mithates, the men leave to try finding remnants of the fire chantments, leaving Calwyn on the boat as women are not allowed in the war-machine-making colleges. Calwyn sees Samis' chantment-powered galley dock nearby and searches for her friends to warn them. She, on the way, meets Trout, a bespectacled, inventive college student, who has unknowingly acquired an ancient and powerful object; the Clarion of Flame. This Clarion, a trumpet-like device, is the last remnant of the Chantments of Fire.

Samis, using the chantments of Seeming (illusion) to give himself the appearance of Darrow, attempts to seduce Calwyn into giving him the Clarion; Calwyn, because of her soft spot for Darrow, is at first swayed, but eventually realizes the truth. Calwyn and Trout flee from Samis and the Mithate guards; Calwyn uses her chantments to aid their escape. They reach the boat, where they see the real Darrow, Tonno, and Xanni running towards them and away from Samis. Samis uses iron chantment to wield a dagger, threatening to kill Darrow; Xanni takes the blow and dies instead. Everyone, including Trout, escapes from Mithates.

The crew gives Xanni's dead body a burial at sea. Later, they all become embittered by his death. Their quest abandoned, the survivors are caught in a storm and are swept into the Great Sea. There they are captured by pirates. Calwyn is taken aboard the pirates' ship because they believe that she is a windworker; a chanter able to control the wind. While aboard, Calwyn befriends the pirates' other windworker, Mica.

Mica soon teaches Calwyn how to sing a breeze, thus preventing the pirates from killing her out of hand. Calwyn's ability to sing chantments of both ice and wind convinces Mica that Calwyn's father, who remains unidentified, is an islander, on the grounds that only islanders can sing chantments of wind.

The pirates dock at Doryus Town, which is notorious for its slave trade and drug traffic. There, the pirate captain hopes to sell Calwyn to a man who desires a windworker, this man being an incognito Samis. When the pirates have been rendered into a stupor by the effects of a drug called ''slava'', Calwyn, Mica, and the ''Fledgewing'''s crew escape. At the same time, Samis tests the Clarion's power on the dormant volcano of the island of Doryus. The volcano erupts, revealing the Clarion's power to summon all forms of fire or heat. The crew of the ''Fledgewing'' travel to the arboreal Wildlands with new hope for their quest.

While approaching the Wildlands, the protagonists are confronted by the draconic Arakin, who are guardians of that region. Calwyn uses her powers of chantment to make peace with them, revealing that she has a third power of chantment in her composition; the Power of Beasts. This gives Darrow cause for contemplation and worry, in that it implies that Calwyn is the true Singer of All Songs.

In the forests of the Wildlands, the sailors are befriended by Halasaa, one of the mute, telepathic Tree People, who is the last guardian of the powers of Becoming; therefore, the power to heal, which is the only one of the Nine Chantments not dependent on audial speech. The Tree People send Halasaa away from their community of Spiridrell as punishment for befriending the outsiders, who have perpetrated genocide against them in the past. He escorts the outsiders, at their request, to the ancient, abandoned city of Spareth, where they meet Samis once more.

In the ancient, apparently high-tech city, they enter a tower, where Samis finds them again. In a final confrontation, Samis tricks and then terrorizes the crew of Fledgewing into singing the different chantments, claiming that he who commands the Nine Powers to be sung will become the Singer of all Songs. When Darrow's life is threatened, a despairing Calwyn sings the last chantment, a song of ice-call. Instead of transforming Samis into a god, the Great Power he has summoned absorbs and overwhelms him.

The crew are left to ponder how to realize Samis’ vision for a peaceful and united Tremaris without tyranny: not as one lone voice, as he wanted, but as many voices singing together.

While on a road trip in the Southwest, Rae (Long) discovers that her man, Michael (Foxx), spent the $15,000 they set aside for a home on a vintage Studebaker. Rae promptly dumps Michael at a convenience store and hops a ride to the airport. Soon after, Michael loses the car when a young kid cons him out of the keys.

Michael soon finds his day going from bad to worse when he's caught up in a botched robbery at the convenience store where he's now stranded. The cops (local vigilantes) show up ready for a gunfight. Michael finds himself trying to convince the gunman (Yáñez) to let him and the other hostages go, all while trying to plan how to get to the airport before Rae's flight leaves.

A car accident changes an orphan's life as she becomes the legal guardian of her four brothers. She meets a woman who sets to return to her husband who is in Paris by asking Rocio to pretend that she is Isabel (the woman's daughter). The father (Carlos Estrada) hasn't seen her in 13 years and doesn't know that the real Isabel is dead.

Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) seeks to keep the ship "spick and span" and arranges for Dave Lister (Craig Charles) to be obedient by rationing his cigarettes and threatening to jettison the ship's entire supply if he disobeys. When Cat (Danny John-Jules) finds them, Rimmer offers him a deal to return them in exchange for getting all the fish he wants from the food dispensers.Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 47. However, Lister refuses to let this get to him, instead wondering why he could not be with a hologram of his true love Kristine Kochanski (Clare Grogan). When he questions Holly (Norman Lovett) over his decision to revive Rimmer and not anyone else, particularly Kochanski or one of his drinking buddies, the computer explains that Rimmer was considered by him to be the best to keep Lister sane, citing that Rimmer was the person whom Lister interacted with the most. Wishing to spend his Friday night relaxing rather than reviewing the ship's food inventory as Rimmer intended, Lister spends his evening in the ship's empty discotheque, reminiscing about his drinking buddies and Kochanski.

Regardless of Holly's answer, Lister demands Rimmer to let him have Kochanski as a hologram to go on a date with for a few hours. Rimmer refuses his request, believing that he would not be switched back on. This leads to an argument between the pair, which prompts Lister to declare his intention to outrank him by passing his exams. Rimmer naturally assumes he plans to pass the Astronavigation Exam, which Lister and himself have failed before. He soon discovers that Lister seeks to pass the chef's exam, which is much easier and will still allow him to outrank Rimmer. Rimmer gets increasingly nervous when Lister appears to be doing well with his studies. Despite Lister's offers to abandon the exam if he were allowed to have Kochanski, Rimmer still refuses. Rimmer realises Lister may pass, so to prevent this, Rimmer corrupts his image to appear and sound like Kochanski and convince him that she wouldn't be interested in someone like Lister, but fails when he acts out of character. Once the exam results come in, Rimmer nervously asks how he did, to which Lister smugly implies that he passed, refusing to show off his results.Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 48.

A former divorcé learns that her new husband's past includes an abandoned wife. After he disappears with his two sons, the two wives team up to find him.

Rocio is an orphan girl who is in a finishing school. She has fun teasing the boys from the neighboring school as she tries to fix a church. They found out the needed a large amount of money and the children decide to put on a talent show. Rocio is sad that her father won't come to the talent show, as he left her 5 years ago, so her friends try to reunite father & daughter for the talent show.

In 1992, a woman exploring a shipwreck has mysteriously been transported back in time to 1840 when the ship was still intact, she has no choice but to explore. Her sleuthing leads to revelations about her past.

Murliprasad Sharma a.k.a. Munna Bhai, a street-wise Bombay Hindi-speaking gangster in Mumbai, is smitten with the voice of Janvi Sahni, a radio jockey. When she announces a contest on the life and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi set for 2 October—Gandhi's birthday, with an interview with her as the prize, he is determined to win. Through the assistance of his sidekick Sarkeshwar "Circuit" Sharma, who kidnaps and bribes a group of professors, and his goons, who jam the phone lines, Munna succeeds and meets Janvi in person. During the interview, he lies that he is a history professor specialising in Gandhi and living by his principles. Having difficulty speaking formal Hindi, Munna uses much colloquial language and calls his version of Gandhism "Gandhigiri" ( ). Despite this, Janvi is impressed asks him to host a lecture on Gandhi in her home, which she has repurposed into a senior citizen community called "Second Innings House". Realizing he can't use his old tricks, Munna crams in a library to study the life and works of Gandhi in five days.

Gandhi, who Munna refers to by his nickname Bapu ("father"), starts to appear at this time and offers help and advice to Munna, who is the only person that can see him. Gandhi continues to appear each time Munna sings ''Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram'' (a song often sung in Gandhi's memory). Initially, Munna believes he is going mad, but later comes to get used to Gandhi's presence. With Gandhi's help, Munna delivers a chaotic but well-received lecture about Gandhism being only used in name and not in practice. He then helps the seniors solve their problems through his connections and rowdyism. Lucky Singh, an unscrupulous businessman who employed Circuit and Munna to conduct "underworld" activities for him, learns that Munna is in love with Janvi and offers to help him propose to her by funding a trip to Goa for all the senior citizens. During the trip, Munna tries to confess his love to Janvi, however, they discover the trip was a ruse for Lucky to occupy the house. It turns out that Lucky's daughter, Simran, is engaged to marry Sunny, the son of Khurana, a powerful businessman. Khurana is superstitious and his activities are controlled by his astrologer, Batuk Maharaj. Maharaj's particular use of numerology led Khurana to add an extra "k" to his name and further convinced him that "Second Innings House" would be the most auspicious place for the new couple to live, hence the seizure. Further, Batuk initially advised Khurana to not go through with the wedding since Simran is a manglik. But Lucky, not wanting to lose such an alliance, covers this up by saying that there is a mistake in the time of Simran's birth and hence the alliance progresses.

With the authorities and lawyers not willing to confront Lucky, Munna, Circuit, Janvi, and the senior citizens of ''Second Innings House'' launch a non-violent satyagraha outside Lucky's home. After a fight with Lucky's security guards, Munna and Circuit are arrested. Janvi later bails them out and invites Munna to her radio show to publicise the issue. They host a new program called "Bapu ka magic", where they offer Gandhigiri-style advice to listeners' problems, only asking that the listeners send Lucky flowers to help him recover from the "disease of dishonesty" in exchange as a unique, non-violent protest. After Munna gets his first caller, Victor D'Souza, who works as a taxi driver to repay his father's money lost in bad investments, the show gains popularity and pressure builds on Lucky, who tries and fails to offer Khurana other properties. Later, on Gandhi's insistence, Munna gives a letter to Janvi; thinking it is a love letter, Janvi instead learns the truth about Munna and leaves heartbroken, causing the protests to falter. Janvi also refuses to host the radio show with Munna. Despite this, Munna meets Lucky and assures him that he will not give up the fight. Since the radio show has gained popularity, he continues to host it on his own, offering increasingly out-of-the-box but successful solutions to listeners, much to Janvi's chagrin.

The pressure on Lucky from Khurana reaches boiling point. Lucky then tricks Munna into revealing his conversations with Gandhi before a public audience, making him seem insane. On the day of Simran's wedding, she learns the truth about her father's deception of Khurana and runs away, ending up in Victor's cab. Meanwhile, a dejected Munna and Circuit are leaving the city. However, in a drunken stupor, Munna decides not to give up on Janvi. They go to the radio station where Munna has Circuit hold the studio hostage, in an attempt to apologize to Janvi through the program. Simultaneously, Victor connects Simran to Munna, where she reveals that although she loves Sunny, she is a manglik and thus is unlucky to marry. She is also devastated by her father's wrongdoings, having always looked up to him. With Lucky, Janvi and the senior citizens listening in, Munna convinces her to go back and tell the truth, reasoning that Khurana's belief in numerology is irrational . Simran does so and Khurana rejects her. Munna and Circuit go to the wedding and use some of their old tricks to successfully dispel Maharaj's superstitions. When Khurana still remains unmoved, Sunny refuses to listen to his father and marries Simran anyway. Munna and Circuit are arrested again. In jail, Janvi returns and reconciles with Munna and a grateful Lucky apologizes, promising to reform, and returns the house keys. In the end, Gandhi narrates what happens to all the other characters. Munna and Janvi got married and continued their show. Circuit is adopted by Bomi and Tina, a newly married old couple living at the house who adopt his mannerisms. Victor achieved success, finally earning enough money to buy a taxi of his own, making his father proud. Sunny and Simran remained happily married, and have a child, prompting Khurana to renounce his belief in numerology and fire Batuk. The film ends with a reformed Lucky sitting in the very same library in which Munna sat, reading up on Gandhi, and Gandhi begins to appear to him too.

Kate, an attractive young woman, is attempting to comfort her father upon her mother's death – even though her mother is alive and has run off with Kate's uncle and is living in Droitwich, leaving them destitute. He suggests that Kate become a prostitute to solve their money troubles. Kate refuses indignantly and decides to go to London to seek her fortune, over her father's objections ("Why walk all the way to London when you can make a fortune lying on your back?!").

Lord Blackadder is at home, target practising with his bow and arrow (his servant, Baldrick, is holding the target). Hanger-on Lord Percy enters and announces that he is in love with Jane Harrington. Blackadder remarks casually that he and Baldrick had both slept with her, which throws Percy's aim off and he shoots Baldrick in the groin with an arrow. Kate enters, disguised as a boy, introduces herself as "Bob," and asks to be accepted into Blackadder's service. Blackadder hires her on the spot, firing Baldrick in the process. However, Baldrick is allowed to stay and work for Blackadder, as long as he works a bit harder and lives in the gutter.

Over the next few weeks Lord Blackadder finds himself strangely attracted to his new servant and spends a great deal of time with "Bob". Lord Melchett and the Queen are concerned by this, and even Blackadder himself begins to worry after he nearly kisses "Bob" during a friendly tussle. He seeks advice from a doctor, who prescribes leeches to be dissolved in his mouth, and (on Baldrick's advice) consults the Wise Woman, who gives him three options: 1) kill Bob; 2) commit suicide; or 3) go ahead and sleep with Bob and, to ensure no one ever finds out, kill everyone in the entire world.

With no other options, Blackadder orders Bob out of his service, but the truth is revealed (along with "Bob's" breasts) and after a ''very'' brief sexual encounter Blackadder asks Bob/Kate to marry him. She accepts, and the Queen consents, after being reassured that Kate's nose is not prettier than hers. Baldrick is chosen as Kate's bridesmaid, while Edmund's choice for best man is his old school chum, Lord Flashheart, "the best sword, the best shot, the best sailor and the best kisser in the Kingdom".

The wedding service does not go as smoothly as planned. Edmund bribes Kate's father to leave before anyone sees him, and Lord Flashheart has not shown up. With no best man, Blackadder reluctantly asks Percy to fill in. At that moment Flashheart crashes through the roof, throws Percy out, and begins chatting up every woman in the room, including Nursie and Baldrick. He is quite taken with "Bob" and proceeds to steal her from Blackadder. The two of them swap clothes as Kate reveals she now prefers boys' clothing and Flashheart prefers dresses, announce they are running away together, set off a bomb, and disappear. Melchett reminds Edmund that in such circumstances, it is customary for the groom to marry the bridesmaid, a suggestion positively received by Baldrick.

Upon being caught cheating in his Leaving Certificate exam and being banned from sitting the exam for another three years, a young man commits suicide. A close friend of his subsequently plots to cheat in his own Leaving Certificate in order to get revenge against the system. With the help of a rag-tag group of friends this young man organizes a complex scheme to steal copies of the test papers from the Department of Education and, upon winning, show the world he has beaten the system.

Fifty gunmen force all of the men in a small Mexican village to ride off with them into the desert. Among the captured farmers is Chico, who years before was one of seven hired gunslingers responsible for ridding the village of a tyrannical bandit, Calvera. Chico's wife, Petra, seeks out the only other members of the band to survive: Chris and Vin. She begs them to save the village once more. To replace the deceased members of the group, Chris buys the release of Frank (a taciturn gunman) and Luis (a famous bandit), held in the local jail and recruits Colbee, a ladies' man and deadly gunman, and Manuel, a young cockfighter.

The six men discover that the missing villagers are being used as slave labor to rebuild a desert village and church as a memorial to the dead sons of wealthy rancher Lorca. In a surprise attack, the six gunmen force Lorca's men to leave, and prepare for a counterattack with Chico. The cowed farmers offer no assistance, but the seven defenders successfully repulse Lorca's initial attack. Lorca, the rancher, then gathers all of the men on his land to rout the seven men.

The situation seems bleak until Manuel discovers a supply of dynamite which the seven use in a counteroffensive. They are eventually overrun, but Chris emerges victorious from a shootout with Lorca. The rancher's gang flee, leaving Frank, Luis, and Manuel dead in the fighting. Chico plans to resettle the village on Lorca's fertile land, and Colbee remains to help teach the villagers how to defend themselves against future attacks; he also plans to pursue the available women. Chris and Vin once more ride off together.

Described by the author as a "farce in three scenes", the story involves an overbearing mother who travels to a luxury resort in the Caribbean, bringing along her son and her deceased husband, preserved and in his casket.

Mercenaries Arthur, Melody, and Forte are hired by the King of Enrich to hunt down and capture a renegade ninja by the name of Rodi. The group pursues Rodi to the nearby mines where, after a brief skirmish, an unknown craft crashes through the roof. All four characters are gravely injured, but soon healed by being possessed by strange spirits. While those inhabiting Arthur, Melody and Rodi seem benevolent, Forte is occupied by an evil spirit. From here the story follows the three unwitting heroes as they fight to stop the revival of the legendary 1,000 year kingdom, which would return the world to an age of darkness.

''Shining the Holy Ark'' takes place 10 years before ''Shining Force III''. While in the town of Enrich, Arthur and the others meet a young boy named Julian. He tells them that his father went to investigate a haunted mansion in the woods, but never returned. Since that time he has been in the care of a family friend. It would later be discovered that Julian's father was killed by Galm, one of the mythical Vandals that ruled over the world during the time of the 1,000 year kingdom. His father's death compels Julian to seek revenge against Galm, which sets into motion his involvement in the events of ''Shining Force III''.[https://www.shiningforcecentral.com/?p=studies&c=chronology Shining Force Chronology and Connections], Shining Force Central.

Morgarath, the exiled lord of the bleak, barren Mountains of Rain and Night has been waiting fifteen years in his dark realm, carefully planning his revenge against the Kingdom of Araluen. His former fief, known as Gorlan, was long ago brought to ruin as a result of his unsuccessful rebellion against King Duncan. Now he silently plots to rebel again, rallying hideous creatures known as Wargals to his side. Wargals have little will of their own, and are easy to control, therefore being suitable as soldiers in Morgarath's army. After fifteen years, Morgarath prepares to unleash his power, except using two strong beasts called the Kalkara, which are very powerful ape-like assassins, to attempt to weaken the Kingdom before trying to take the Kingdom once more.

Meanwhile, in Araluen, in Redmont Fief, a special day has come for 15-year-old Will and his fellow wardmates (Horace, Alyss, George, and Jenny), called Choosing Day, where they all become an apprentice to a craftmaster or have to work in the local farms. Jenny is apprenticed to Master Chubb, the castle cook. Horace is accepted to Battleschool, and George is accepted to Scribeschool, while Alyss is accepted as a courier. Although Will's first choice was Battleschool (he does this because he thinks his father was a brave knight, although he doesn't know for sure what happened to him), Baron Arald (the baron of Redmont fief) explains to him that his talents lie in other directions. Instead of being accepted to Battleschool, he becomes apprenticed to Halt the Ranger, after sneaking into a guarded tower at the castle. Rangers are the intelligence group of the country and specialize in long-range weapons and the art of staying unseen. Will is not overly excited about this, but he is trained in these skills. The main reason why he is being trained in these skills is that he needs to prepare for the annual Ranger meeting called the Gathering. During this time he begins to establish a closeness to Halt and starts to realize that being a Ranger is much better than it seems. Will is given a horse named Tug, from an old horse trainer by the name of Old Bob.

In the meantime, Will's wardmate Horace is in Battleschool. His life is harsh and he is bullied by three second-year Battleschool cadets: Alda, Bryn, and Jerome. During a local holiday known as Harvest Day, Horace and Will fight, increasing their hatred for each other. Six weeks after this incident, Will and Halt find signs of a wild boar that has been roaming the area. They also meet a rambling, frightened farmer by the name of Salt Peter. The two get a group of men that will kill the boar, and Horace is recruited to the boar hunt. During the hunt, a young knight kills one boar, but while the other hunters are congratulating him, a second boar suddenly bursts out of its den and charges straight for Horace, who tries to kill it but slips and becomes vulnerable. Will distracts the boar, also tries to kill it by shooting at its heart but fails, and is saved by inches from death by Halt's well-timed arrow. In saving Horace's life, he cements a friendship between Will and Horace and erases the lasting tension between the two. Sometime after the killing of the boar, Alda, Bryn, and Jerome corner Horace and beat him brutally. They then proceed to the forest to give Will the same treatment. He manages to evade the three for a few minutes but is quickly overpowered. Horace then arrives and intervenes, and the bullies leave Will to continue beating Horace. They are in turn stopped by Halt, who invites Horace to sword fight the bullies individually. One by one, he defeats them and incapacitates Alda. As a punishment, they are banished from the fief, making Horace closer to the Rangers. However, it has now come time for Halt and Will to leave for the Gathering. Here Will meets Halt's former apprentice, Gilan. During the Gathering, the Rangers receive a report that the Kalkara, vicious creatures under the control of Morgarath, have entered Araluen.

Halt, Will and Gilan leave to track down and kill the Kalkara. Halt thinks that the Kalkara is headed to the Ruins of Gorlan and tells Will to go back to Redmont, bring some soldiers and rendezvous at the ruins. At Redmont, Baron Arald, and Sir Rodney (Arald’s battlemaster) head out to slay the Kalkara and to save Halt. Finding that Halt is battling the Kalkara alone (and not faring so well), Sir Rodney and Baron Arald manage to knock one into the fire, but are badly injured by the other. Will watches, horrified, and knows he must do something. He runs over to a torch that Baron Arald dropped, creates a fire arrow, and shoots the Kalkara in the chest, setting it on fire. Back at his fief, Will is considered a hero and receives his bronze oakleaf which identifies him as a Ranger's apprentice. When he and his ward mates reunite to congratulate him at an inn, Alyss surprisingly kisses Will. Meanwhile, Araluen prepares for a war with Lord Morgarath and his army of Wargals.

''The Ruins of Gorlan''

Morgarath, the exiled baron, has been waiting fifteen years, carefully planning his revenge against the Kingdom of Araluen. He prepares to unleash his power and attempt once more to take control of the kingdom. In Araluen, in Redmont Fief, a special day has come for 15-year-old Will and his fellow wardmates (Horace, Alyss, George, and Jenny), called Choosing Day, where they all become an apprentice to a craftmaster or have to work in the local farms. Will becomes apprenticed to Halt the Ranger. Rangers are the intelligence group of the country and specialize in long-range weapons and the art of staying unseen. Will begins to train in these skills.

In the meantime, Will's wardmate Horace is in Battleschool. His life is harsh and he is bullied by three second-year Battleschool cadets. During a local holiday known as Harvest Day, Horace and Will fight, increasing their hatred for each other. Six weeks later, Will saves Horace's life during a boar hunt, cementing a friendship between the two boys. Later, the Battleschool bullies attack Will, leading to Halt intervening and having the bullies banished from the fief. Soon after, Halt and Will leave for the Ranger Gathering, where they receive a report that the Kalkara, vicious creatures under the control of Morgarath, have entered Araluen.

Halt, Will and Gilan leave to track down and kill the Kalkara. Halt thinks that the Kalkara are headed to the ruins of Gorlan and tells Will to go back to Redmont, get backup, and rendezvous at the ruins. At Redmont, Baron Arald and Sir Rodney (Arald's battlemaster) head out to slay the Kalkara and to save Halt. Finding that Halt is battling the Kalkara alone (and not faring so well), Sir Rodney and Baron Arald manage to knock one into the fire, but are badly injured by the other. Will shoots the Kalkara fatally in the chest with a flaming arrow. Back at his fief, Will is considered a hero and receives his bronze oakleaf, which identifies him as a Ranger's apprentice.

''The Burning Bridge''

A war with Morgarath is approaching, and Will, Gilan (Halt's former apprentice), and Horace (Will's friend and a knight-in-training) are sent to Celtica, a nearby country, to ask for reinforcements. Every town they find is deserted. A survivor named Evanlyn explains that Wargals, mindless minions of Morgarath, have caused the destruction. Gilan travels to Araluen to report to the king. Meanwhile, Will, Horace, and Evanlyn encounter Wargals. They follow them to the Fissure, a deep gorge, to discover that the Celtic miners were captured to complete a bridge across the Fissure and a tunnel through the cliffs above up to Morgarath's lair. This would allow Morgarath's army to attack the King's army from behind. It is revealed that Evanlyn is in truth the missing crown princess Cassandra.

Horace and Gilan manage to warn the king and his advisers of Morgarath's plan. The king dispatches an auxiliary force, led by Halt, to stop a force of Skandian warriors that have come up from the coast to outflank the king's army. This is done successfully, and Halt and his troops disguise themselves as Skandians, tricking Morgarath into ordering the Wargals to charge into the open plain. A cavalry charge demolishes the advancing Wargals, who are afraid only of horses. His army destroyed, Morgarath offers a flag of truce and prepares to challenge Halt to single combat to avenge his own defeat. Horace challenges Morgarath instead. Horace is outmatched by Morgarath, but Horace manages to kill Morgarath. Meanwhile, Will and Cassandra are captured by the Skandians and held as hostages.

''The Icebound Land''

Will and Cassandra are enslaved in Skandia, a country north-east across the Stormwhite Sea at the Araluen border. In Hallasholm, the Skandian capital, Will is forced to work outside in the bitter cold, while Cassandra is taken into the kitchens. Will quickly becomes addicted to warmweed, a drug that destroys the mind and body. Erak, the Skandian who captured Will and Cassandra, helps Cassandra escape with Will, and the two take refuge in a small log cabin for winter. Following Erak's advice, Cassandra weans Will off the warmweed and Will overcomes his addiction. Meanwhile, Horace and Halt set off to rescue Will and Cassandra, by crossing into Gallica and making their way north along the coast. Horace becomes known as "The Oakleaf Knight" as he defeats many Gallican knights in combat, thereby attracting the attention of Deparnieux, a famed knight. Deparnieux attempts to capture Halt and Horace but is tricked by Halt and killed.

''Oakleaf Bearers''

In ''Oakleaf Bearers'', called ''The Battle for Skandia'' in the United States, Cassandra is captured by a Temujai warrior while scavenging for food. The Temujai are a fierce, nomadic tribe of horse warriors from the east and are masters of the recurve bow. Will struggles to rescue her until Horace and Halt arrive. Halt captures a Temujai and realizes the Temujai are attempting to take over the western world. Twenty years earlier, they almost succeeded. Halt agrees to help Skandia drive off the Temujai, since they pose a threat to Araluen as well. The Skandians make use of Halt's knowledge of the Temujai tactics, and Will trains a force of archers for the upcoming battle against the Temujai. During the battle, the Skandians surprise the Temujai with their archers, and the Temujai are forced to withdraw. The Skandian Oberjarl Ragnak (the supreme ruler) is killed in the battle, and Erak is elected to succeed him. Cassandra and Erak sign the Treaty of Hallasholm, which means the end of constant Skandian raids against the Araluen coast.

''The Sorcerer in the North''

After receiving his silver oakleaf and being assigned to Seacliff Fief, Will takes on his first mission as a full-fledged Ranger. A few weeks after arriving in the fief, a disguised Will is sent north to Castle Macindaw to investigate claims of sorcery. The lord of Castle Macindaw, Syron, is ill and many believe a sorcerer caused the illness. His friend Alyss, also in disguise, is sent to help Will, but is captured by the rogue knight Keren, responsible for poisoning Syron. Will escapes with allies of Syron, and enlists the help of the "sorcerer", who is a gifted healer called Malcolm. Orman, Syron's son, has been poisoned as well and is smuggled to Malcolm. Will attempts to rescue Alyss, but Keren walks through the door and Will barely escapes.

''The Siege of Macindaw''

Horace and Will devise a plan to take control of the castle and rescue Alyss with the help of a group of Skandians. They infiltrate the castle and Will reaches the tower where Alyss is held, but Keren hypnotises her to believe Will is the enemy and orders her to kill him. At the last moment, Will tells Alyss that he loves her, and the hypnosis is broken. As Keren attacks Will, Alyss defeats him while the Skandians, led by Horace, take control of the castle. Will returns to Seacliff Fief and receives a letter from Alyss with her own love confession.

''Erak's Ransom''

''Erak's Ransom'' takes place after ''Oakleaf Bearers'' but before ''The Sorcerer in the North'', several months before Will receives his Silver Oakleaf, though it was released after ''The Siege of Macindaw''. Skandian Oberjarl Erak goes on one final raid. However, he is captured and held for ransom while attempting to raid Al Shabah, a province of Arrida. Because Erak's first mate Svengal believes that he was betrayed by Toshak, a rival Skandian, the raiding party goes to Araluen, instead of Skandia, for the ransom money. Princess Cassandra goes to Arrida in her father's place to negotiate prices with Selethen, the Wakir (leader) of Al Shabah. Will, Gilan, Halt, Horace, and thirty of Erak's men go along for protection and to deliver the ransom. After the negotiation is over, Selethen reveals that Erak was being held in Mararoc, a fort in the desert, but as they are traveling there, Will loses his horse Tug during a sandstorm and goes off to find him. Will runs out of water and is saved by the nomadic Bedullin tribe. Meanwhile, Erak is captured by the Tualaghi, a merciless nomadic tribe of devil worshipers. The rescue party, with the help of the Bedullin tribe, defeat the leader of the Tualaghi and free Erak. Finally, Will is promoted to full Ranger and is awarded a silver oakleaf.

''The Kings of Clonmel''

Will, Halt, and Horace are on a mission to stop a cult called the Outsiders from taking power. The cult offers protection to villages from "bandits", who are secretly other Outsiders, in exchange for gold. In this fashion, they have taken control of five of the six kingdoms of Hibernia. Halt, Will, and Horace are sent to Clonmel, the last kingdom, to try to prevent the cult from expanding into Araluen. Halt, a Hibernian native, is a member of the royal family, and he tries to persuade his twin brother, King Ferris of Clonmel, to use his troops to drive the cult out. The cult loses power in Clonmel, but the leader, Tennyson, escapes. At the same time, King Ferris is killed by a Genovesan assassin hired by Tennyson, and Halt's nephew Sean becomes king. Will, Halt, and Horace leave Clonmel to chase the false prophet, Tennyson.

''Halt's Peril''

After reaching a smuggler's port and managing to get information on Tennyson's whereabouts, the trio hire a ship to take them to Picta. The chase is on as the three pursue Tennyson through a drowned forest, and finally, at an encounter with Tennyson's hired assassins, Halt is shot with a poisoned arrow and is incapacitated. Picta is located near Macindaw, so Will rides to fetch Malcolm, the best healer in Araluen. They discover that Halt was poisoned with a toxin that has another toxin extremely similar to it. They both have antidotes, but to use the wrong one is fatal. Will captures the assassin that fired the arrow and forces him to reveal the toxin he used, and Malcolm cures Halt. The group finds Tennyson, who is trying to swindle more countryfolk. Using Halt's similarity to King Ferris, whom Tennyson murdered, they manage to discredit Tennyson. Will causes a cave-in that kills Tennyson and his followers. Halt, Horace, and Will are given a heroes' welcome when they return to Araluen.

''The Emperor of Nihon-Ja''

Horace and George are in Nihon-Ja, guests of the Emperor of Nihon-Ja, Shigeru. Meanwhile, Will, Halt, Selethen, and Alyss observe a Toscan general's demonstration of military tactics while at a treaty signing between the Toscans and the Arridi, both allies of Araluen. The Emperor of Nihon-Ja is told by his cousin Shukin that there's been a coup against the Emperor by Arisaka, a noble. A Senshi (skilled swordsman) ambush nearly succeeds in killing the Emperor, but Horace intervenes. He decides to help the Emperor find the legendary, impenetrable fortress of Ran-Koshi while George contacts Araluen for help. Later, the crown princess of Araluen, Cassandra, appears and enlists the help of the two Rangers, Alyss, and Selethen to go after Horace. En route to Ran-Koshi, Horace's party befriends the local woodworkers known as Kikori, and they join Horace's group on the trek to Ran-Koshi. Halt's group arrives in Nihon-Ja and learn of Horace's whereabouts. While Shukin and other Senshi sacrifice themselves to delay Arisaka's enormous Senshi party, Horace's group reaches Ran-Koshi and settle in. Halt's group arrives at Ran-Koshi soon after.

The group sets up defenses to stop Arisaka's army, successfully repelling them. Cassandra and Alyss set out to recruit a tribe of warriors allied with the Emperor: the Hasanu. Will, noting how the Kikori work together excellently, utilizes the tactics of the Toscan general to train them. Arisaka's main party arrives near Ran-Koshi. The final battle begins, and the armies seem evenly matched until Arisaka's reinforcements arrive. As the Kikori forces regroup, Alyss and Cassandra arrive with the Hasanu. Before the battle can continue, the Emperor calls a truce and convinces Arisaka's army that Arisaka is a power-hungry fool. Arisaka is enraged and Will directly confronts him and kills him. On the return trip to Araluen, Horace and Cassandra announce their engagement. Will makes a poor attempt at proposing to Alyss, and she marches off in mock indignation.

''The Lost Stories''

''The Lost Stories'' consists of nine different short stories, set at various times before, during, and after the events of the previous ten books. Stories include the tale of Will's father, what happened to Gilan during the events of ''The Icebound Land'', the story of Halt's apprenticeship in Hibernia, and several stories following the main characters after the conclusion of ''The Emperor of Nihon-Ja'', including one where Will and Alyss get married.

''The Royal Ranger''

Years after the previous books, Will Treaty tries to cope with the death of his wife Alyss, who died in an inn set on fire by the gang leader Jory Ruhl. When his friends begin to notice the change in his personality, Gilan, the new Ranger Commandant, calls on Halt, Pauline, Cassandra, and Horace to discuss the situation. Halt suggests that Will take on an apprentice to take his mind off his quest for revenge. Meanwhile, Princess Madelyn, the daughter of Horace and Cassandra, sneaks out at night to use her sling to hunt, against the will of her parents. Halt suggests that Maddie be apprenticed to Will, which would make Maddie the first female apprentice in Ranger history. At the beginning of her apprenticeship, Will gives Maddie a letter from her parents, which says she has been disinherited as a princess of Araluen, in a desperate last resort by her parents to get her under control. Will proceeds to train Maddie, and his quest for revenge is slowly forgotten. When Gilan suggests Will take Maddie on a mission, Will accepts.

Gilan assigns Will and Maddie to investigate the death of Liam, another Ranger. They soon discover a plot by an illicit slave ring who kidnaps children. Will learns that the leader of the slave ring is actually Jory Ruhl, but he manages to set aside his desire for revenge to save the children Ruhl has kidnapped. Maddie is injured in the process, and Will kills Ruhl to save her. Six months later, Maddie is awarded her bronze oakleaf, marking her as an official Ranger's apprentice, and Cassandra offers her reinstatement as a princess. However, Maddie declines, saying she wishes to complete her apprenticeship instead.

In the prologue, Halt (a legendary Ranger) and Will (the protagonist and Halt's apprentice), captures Dirk Reacher, one of Morgarath's former henchmen. They search Reacher and find Mogarath’s battle plans to invade Araluen. Halt and Will think over it, but decide it is genuine.

Meanwhile, on a special mission for the Ranger Corps, Will, his friend Horace (a Battleschool apprentice), and the Ranger Gilan (one of Halt's former apprentices) travel to Celtica, a neighbouring country southwest of Araluen. When they ride to Celtica, they discover that all the people in the villages have mysteriously vanished. Will and Horace wonder if all the villagers have been slain or captured, but Gilan believes that the evil Lord Morgarath devised a plan to cross the mountain pass faster. If that was true, and the King wasn't warned, the country would be destroyed. Gilan rides to warn King Duncan, the King of Araluen, and Will and Horace begin to follow a straggling Wargal force. On their way, they come across an abandoned girl named Evanlyn, who claims to be a maid to Lady Ariana Wulton of the Araluen court, but is actually Princess Cassandra, King Duncan's wife, in disguise. When the three of them follow the dimwitted Wargals they discover that a gargantuan bridge is in the process of being built across the impassable Fissure for their war party to cross. They also discover that the King's army will be trapped on the Plains of Uthal, because the plans that Halt and Will captured in the prologue of the book were merely a ruse to distract them. Will burns the bridge with Evanlyn's help. Evanlyn tries to warn Will about a rock thrown by a Skandian but is too late, giving a chance for a Skandian to grab them. Will and Evanlyn are taken captive by the group of Skandians ruled by Jarl Erak, but Horace is able to escape their grasp. After, he tells the King and his aides about what is going to happen, the army starts to get prepared for the army that is supposed to attack them from behind, Halt is sent to take care of them with a force of cavalry and archer units (a unit consist of an archer and a pikeman). In the middle of the battle, Morgarath calls a truce and challenges Halt to a duel, but King Duncan forbids it to happen. Then, unexpectedly, Horace challenges Morgarath to single combat. About to be defeated by Morgarath, Horace then, in a attempt to win the duel, throws himself into the path of Mogarath’s battle horse, to throw it off balance. He is successful, but only manages to wind Morgarath. Morgarath is confident that he is going to win by a last powerful stroke of his broadsword, but Horace blocks it with the double-knife defence that Gilan taught Will in Celtics and stabs Morgarath in the heart to win the battle. The Wargals become harmless as soon as Morgarath dies and the mind domination is broken. Immediately Halt goes looking for Will and Cassandra but he is too late. The Skandians sail for Skandia to sell Will and Princess Cassandra as slaves.

Freddy was an intelligent pig that lived on the Bean Farm. To avoid the cold winter at their farm in Upstate New York, the animals decided to vacation in Florida. At first Charles the rooster is prevented from joining them by his acerbic wife, Henrietta.

The animals encounter a man and a boy who wished to capture them. The animals scared them off. Later, Charles and Henrietta joined the group again. They also met the man and the boy, with the same results as last time. The animals were also joined by the man's black dog, Jack.

They next passed through Washington, D.C. where three senators took them on a tour of the city. At the end of the tour, one of the senators made a speech on how pleased he was by the animals' visit. A few days later, while walking towards Florida, a thunderstorm forced the animals to take refuge in an empty log house. A flock of swallows mention a pile of gold in the area.

The animals found the gold but were unable to take it with them, because they couldn't carry it. After meeting two men who tried to capture Hank, the old horse, and Mrs. Wiggins, a cow, the animals arrived at Florida only to get trapped on an island in a swamp by some alligators.

After they escaped the alligators, the farm animals started the long trek northward. Their further adventures included disguising themselves to get past the two kidnappers, returning stolen property to some townspeople, taking the pile of gold with them on an old carriage, and taking the gold back from the man and the boy who tried to steal it before they got back to the Bean farm. Once they got to the farm, they showed Mr. and Mrs. Bean the gold and they all danced merrily.

Category:1927 American novels Category:Freddy the Pig books Category:Alfred A. Knopf books Category:1927 children's books

The novel is narrated by Alexias, a noble Athenian youth, who becomes a noted beauty in the city and a champion runner. The novel suggests that young male Athenians were treated almost like modern debutantes and wooed by older men seeking to be their lovers; in fact, in a memorable passage, Alexias' father, Myron, himself a former beauty and champion athlete, writes to his son before leaving Athens for the Sicilian Expedition. The father imparts to the son the traits he should seek in a lover – qualities like honour, loyalty and courage. However, the father also warns the son not to become involved with women as he is much too young. (See Athenian pederasty.)

As an ephebe (adolescent male), Alexias falls in love with Lysis, a man in his 20s – a champion wrestler and a student of Socrates. The novel follows their relationship through the Peloponnesian War, the surrender of Athens, the establishment of the Thirty Tyrants rule over Athens, the democratic rebellion of Thrasybulus and shortly after. The story ends with first hints of the eventual trial of Socrates for teaching blasphemy and sowing social disorder.

From the beginning of the novel, Socrates figures prominently; both Alexias and Lysis become his students in their youth. Socrates was very prominent around the city, always talking to new people. Also characterised in the novel are Plato and several figures from his Dialogues who were Socrates' students, including Xenophon, Crito and Phaedo. Another historical figure who figures in the story, albeit mostly off-stage, is Alcibiades, the Athenian general who flees Athens on a charge of sacrilege and functions as a military adviser to Sparta until he is recalled by a resurgent democracy in Athens. Alexias and Lysis serve under Alcibiades' command until his carelessness leads the fleet to disaster and he once again goes into exile.

In the course of the novel, Lysis falls in love with and marries a woman who sees Alexias favourably and encourages the continuation of her husband's relationship with him. Not long after this, Athens is defeated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Alexias' conservative father is murdered under the Spartan-installed tyranny known as The Thirty. Alexias and Lysis go to Thebes, joining Thrasybulus when he leads a force of exiles to liberate Athens. Lysis is killed in the battle between the Long Walls running from the port of Piraeus to Athens (the Battle of Munychia). Shortly after the victory, Alexias takes Lysis' widow under his protection, marries her and continues his family line. The book ends with the postscript that this story (incomplete and long-forgotten) has been found by Alexias' grandson (also named Alexias), a commander of Athenian cavalry in the service of Alexander the Great.

The game begins with an attack on Greentown by the Tan Army and Sarge battling through the war-torn city to save it. After the battle, Sarge is informed by Colonel Grimm that General Plastro and the Tan Army has surrendered and that there will be a peace ceremony later that night, but that a rogue Tan division - Operation "Vengeance" - led by Lord Malice has stolen some infantry molds and can now build an army. Sarge's mission is to find and capture Malice, recover the stolen molds, and locate a missing recon squad that hadn't returned from their mission.

Sarge arrives in the area (a beach) and battles his way to the Tan portal. There, he discovers plans indicating that Malice is planning to detonate a bomb at the peace ceremony. Malice contacts Sarge on his radio, revealing the bomb is hidden in the peace statue. Sarge charges through the portal to stop the ceremony, but he is too late - as the bomb goes off, Greentown is destroyed and Plastro, Colonel Grimm, the Heroes, Vikki and the Green and Tan armies are all killed in the explosion. Enraged at the death of his squad, Sarge then sets out to kill Malice and avenge the Heroes.

He battles his way through the remains of Greentown to another Tan portal. Upon proceeding through the portal, he finds himself in Malice's artillery base. Sarge destroys all the artillery and discovers a plastic well mine that Malice is using to build his army. Sarge floods the mine, rendering it useless. He then travels across the desert to Malice's castle. Malice is using the castle as a communication center for his air and ground forces, as well as a prison base for some of the Green army's finest men. Sarge penetrates the castle's defenses, frees the prisoners and destroys the communications tower. Discovering a passage from the castle to a kitchen in the Real World, Sarge flashes back to a time when he was in a similar kitchen, in a squad led by Major Gooding. During an exfiltration mission, Gooding and his squad were ambushed by Tan forces. During the ambush, Sarge called in an air strike and found Gooding's arm near the sink, leading him to the conclusion that Gooding was dead (unknown to Sarge, Gooding was in the sink, trying to call for help). As Sarge takes off in the helicopter, the flashback ends, and Sarge moves forth.

At the end of the game, Sarge finally reaches Lord Malice's headquarters, where he battles Malice himself. After defeating and fatally wounding Malice, Sarge asks him why he killed the Greens and Tans in Greentown. Malice chastises Sarge for not remembering. Sarge removes Malice's face mask and discovers that he was actually Major Gooding, who was accidentally left for dead all those years ago. Malice tells Sarge that after the helicopter took off with Sarge, the Tan eventually found him and changed him into the Lord Malice he is now. As he dies, Malice reveals to Sarge that since that day, he dreamt of making him suffer the way he did. At the end of the scene, Sarge is seen walking out, saying that war makes ultimately no sense.

The closing animation reveals storage tubes inscribed with the names of the deceased soldiers from Sarge's squad, killed in the Greentown attack, though exactly what this means is unclear.

On a winter night in Antaris, Tamen, the Guardian of the Wall, and other priestesses approach the ice Wall that surrounds Antaris. A priestess drugs herself, whereupon the other priestesses sing a hole into the wall. The drugged priestess is sealed inside.

Characters Calwyn, Mica, and Trout are traveling to Antaris, Calwyn's home, hoping that the priestesses may restore Calwyn's lost powers of chantment, by which she was able to manipulate wind, ice, animals, and living systems. Upon reaching the Wall, Mica uses the Clarion of the Flame, a magical object used to invoke fire, to burn a hole into the Wall. The drugged priestess is revealed, whereupon Calwyn tries to heal her, but does not succeed. The three notice other corpses encased in the Wall, which Calwyn attributes to a failure to entomb them according to custom. The three proceed to the priestesses' Dwellings.

When reaching the Dwellings, Calwyn enters the kitchen where she sees a now crippled Lia, a revered priestess and milk healer. Lia warns Calwyn that Tamen will hunt Calwyn down and seal her into the Wall with the other priestesses; having contracted an ailment called snow-sickness, they were put into the Wall in hopes of appeasing their goddess Taris, who would presumably restore spring. Marna, the High Priestess, has died and Tamen has been promoted to High Priestess in her place.

Tamen then appears and accuses Calwyn of bringing the cruel intruder Samis, the endless winter, and the snow-sickness to their homeland. Calwyn argues that she has the right to return home. Tamen sings ice onto Trouts face, whereupon Mica uses the Clarion to melt the ice and attack Tamen. This sets the kitchen on fire.

The three flee and are rescued by Ursca, the infirmarian, who takes them to an abandoned, lightning-struck barn where in the rafters is a snow-sick Marna, apparently alive. It is revealed that when Marna contracted snow-sickness, Ursca proclaimed that Marna had already died and hid her in the barn to prevent Marna from being sealed into the wall. Ursca leaves the three, whereafter Calwyn reprimands Mica for using the Clarion as a weapon. This quarrel upsets both girls.

Calwyn sleeps; later, she awakens to find Marna speaking with great difficulty. Calwyn tries to calm her; Marna tells Calwyn that the world is broken but can be mended. She speaks of the Wheel, which is an object of power, and of the mysterious Tenth Power (of chantment, which is used through specific songs) before she falls asleep. Gilly, a priestess who was formerly frivolous but has become wiser, comes in the morning to help Marna and there befriends Mica.

At night, Calwyn sneaks out to visit Lia, who reveals that she believes that Calwyn will put an end to the snow-sickness. It is also revealed that Marna holds the same opinion.

While Calwyn, Mica, and Trout travel to Antaris, Darrow, Tonno, and Halaasa travel to Gellan, where they encounter the ex-princess Keela. Darrow, while investigating an enclosure of sick chanters, contracts the snow-sickness himself. Later he and the others, including Keela, rendezvous with Calwyn, who has left Antaris and is in search of a missing piece of the Wheel. During the further travels of the combined party, Keela secretly relays information to her half-brother Samis, who is a sorcerer bent on achieving power over others.

Subsequently, the travelers enter the Veiled Lands, which are a region unknown to Calwyn's people but legendary among Halasaa's. Their journey continues underground, culminating at the mysterious Knot of Waters, where Calwyn embraces her own death to save Keela from drowning. This sacrifice revives Calwyn, restores her powers of chantment, and creates a sibling-like bond between the two women. The Clarion of the Flame is lost in the Knot and never again used.

The travelers are met by some of Halaasa's people, who teach them the true history of their world, wherein it is revealed that the snow-sickness is part of a larger pattern of entropy taking place all over Tremaris. Whereas originally all the songs of chantment overlapped, each one strengthening the others, a war between the Tree People and the Voiced Ones (see below) caused the peoples who used them, and therefore the chantments themselves, to separate. It is suggested that the abuse of chantments, practiced during the war, caused chantment to fall into disfavor everywhere. The connections between songs, people, lands, etc. became weaker and more lost.

After this meeting, Calwyn is captured by Samis, who desires to heal Tremaris so that it will not be destroyed before he can conquer it. He keeps her a prisoner in the long-abandoned city-spacecraft called Spareth, which is the means by which the Voiced Ones (colonists from another planet, presumably Earth) arrived on Tremaris millennia before the story begins, trains her in advanced uses of chantment surpassing her previous abilities, and additionally reveals to her the Tenth Power mentioned by Marna. This is the Power of Signs, a code by which the songs of chantment may be written and learned. A minor romance occurs between the two of them during this time, culminating and terminating when Samis and Calwyn use their chantments to empower Spareth, sending it into interplanetary space. Calwyn, now revealed as the legendary Singer of All Songs, remains on Tremaris, while Samis flies inside Spareth, intent on reaching its port of origin.

Ultimately, Calwyn must unite Tree People and Voiced Ones in a common need. In this she succeeds. All the people who had contracted snow-sickness, including Darrow, are healed. The peoples are united in harmony, and a new, better world begins.

While Commander Chakotay is discussing with Icheb and young Naomi Wildman where to hide a special stash of cider from Neelix, the U.S.S. ''Voyager'' is struck by a chronokinetic surge from a rift in space interacting with the ship's warp core. Chakotay is struck with a blast of temporal energy. He regains consciousness in Sickbay where the Doctor has injected him with a chronoton serum to repair injuries from the temporal blast. As Chakotay talks with the Doctor, he finds the Doctor believes it is several years earlier. Chakotay goes exploring the ship, and discovers that various sections of the ship are experiencing different periods of time, a result of the chronokinetic surge. The chronoton serum enables Chakotay to see and travel between these periods, but not other members of the crew.

He makes his way to the bridge, which is currently set a few days before ''Voyager'' was taken to the Delta Quadrant and before he joined the crew. Captain Janeway immediately identifies him as a spy despite his pleas, and ordered to the brig, but en route, they pass through another time period, which Chakotay passes into but not his captors. During his exploration he finds that Engineering has been taken over by Seska and other Kazon, and though captured, he managed to escape due to his ability to travel between these time periods. Chakotay returns to Sick Bay and has the Doctor create more of the chronoton serum, then returns to the bridge, injects Janeway with the serum, and takes her to another time period to avoid capture.

Janeway is initially hostile towards Chakotay's actions, but he demonstrates what has happened to the ship and she becomes more trusting of him. They go to Astrometrics, which is set 23 years in the future and is staffed by LCDR Icheb and LT Naomi Wildman, both adults, who are surprised by their appearance, as in their timeline Janeway and Chakotay had died 17 years earlier. The two are able to provide Chakotay with details on the chronokinetic surge and suggestions for how to restore ''Voyager'' to normal, and Icheb alludes that he never revealed the location of Chakotay's cider stash. Later, they encounter Seven of Nine shortly after her arrival on ''Voyager'', and her Borg knowledge provides a plan for restoring the ship to normal—if Chakotay injects the chronoton serum into the ship's organic gel-packs, all parts of the ships will align with Chakotay's timeframe.

As Chakotay and Janeway travel through the time-separated ship to enact this plan, Seska discovers their intent, and decides to use the same plan to align the ship to her period, thus allowing her to control ''Voyager'' using knowledge from the future to assure she maintains control. She takes Chakotay and Janeway prisoner, but during Chakotay and Janeway's tour of the various time periods of the ship, they have been able to convince most of the other crew to work against the Kazon, and they are rescued. Chakotay successfully injects the serum across the ship, and the ship is fully realigned to his time period with all individuals returning to their respective times. He finds he has ended up moments before the chronokinetic pulse is due to strike. He quickly orders Lt. Torres to blow out the ship's deflector, which prevents the interaction that caused the time fractures.

Later, Chakotay and Janeway have dinner together, where Chakotay tells Janeway he cannot reveal why he ordered the deflector blown out due to the Temporal Prime Directive. He is surprised that Janeway knows of his cider stash, but Janeway refuses to answer, claiming she too is under the Temporal Prime Directive.

B'Elanna Torres is in a good mood, until she arrives at work in Engineering and almost faints. Icheb scans her and states that she has a parasite within her. Seven of Nine also scans Torres and comes up with a different diagnosis: B'Elanna is pregnant.

The Doctor confirms Seven's diagnosis. The fetus is seven weeks old, and perfectly healthy, except for a genetic defect that causes abnormal spine curvature in Klingon females. B'Elanna, who is half Klingon, had surgery as a baby to correct this defect. The Doctor says that nowadays genetic resequencing is the preferred treatment and that he can perform the procedure the following day. He also shows Tom Paris and B'Elanna a holographic projection of what their daughter will look like. Tom thinks she is beautiful but B'Elanna is distressed to learn her daughter will have Klingon facial ridges.

During the procedure the next day, B'Elanna reminisces back to her childhood as a Klingon girl on the colony in which she grew up. She blames herself, especially her Klingon half, for her human father leaving her, and her teasing and harassment by other children for being half Klingon, and resolves to not let the same happen to her daughter. She proposes further genetic resequencing to delete various Klingon genes in order to make her daughter fully human, but the Doctor and B'Elanna's husband Tom Paris disagree.

During one of the couple's arguments, Torres mentions ''Voyager'' has 140 humans on board (not intended as a full crew count, as Vulcans, Bolians, Bajorans, and other aliens are also part of the crew). She claims that if her daughter is even one quarter Klingon, human society will treat her as a "monster". They cannot reach a consensus, so they speak to Janeway, who tells them that their problem is not about ethics, it is about marital affairs. As a friend, she will offer them advice; but as the captain, she will not overrule the Doctor. They still cannot work it out, so Paris ends up staying the night in Harry's quarters. The next day, they have seemed to make up, but just then, the Doctor calls them.

In Sickbay, the Doctor reveals that he has changed his mind and believes that the procedure will be required. Tom is disturbed by this and seeks a second opinion from Icheb. Icheb discovers an error in the Doctor's new assessment and Seven discovers that the EMH's program has been tampered with. Tom stops the procedure in the nick of time, and he and B'Elanna have an argument. She tearfully admits what she fears will happen to her daughter; that Paris will leave them like her father left her and her mother, and Tom reaffirms his commitment to his growing family. The Doctor's alterations are removed, and B'Elanna apologizes to the Doctor and asks him to be the godfather. The Doctor accepts, and B'Elanna feels the baby kick. She then sees the holographic projection one more time and admits that she is cute.

Chuck Levine, a womanizing bachelor, and Larry Valentine, a widower struggling to raise his two children, are two veteran New York City firefighters. During a sweep of a burned building, a segment of floor collapses on Chuck, but Larry saves his life. Chuck vows to repay Larry in any way possible. Experiencing an epiphany from the incident, Larry tries to increase his life insurance policy. He finds out that a lapse in the paperwork after his wife's death keeps him from naming his children as primary beneficiaries. The representative from the insurance company suggests that Larry find a new spouse so he can name that person as his beneficiary. However, there is no woman in Larry's life that he loves or trusts.

Inspired by a newspaper article about domestic partnerships, Larry asks Chuck to enter a civil union with him. Although Chuck declines at first, he is reminded of his debt to Larry and finally agrees, entering a domestic partnership and becoming Larry's primary beneficiary in the event of his death. To their dismay, however, investigators arrive to inquire about their abrupt partnership, suspecting fraud (it is also pointed out this was ''not'' the first time such a plan was attempted against the insurance company). Chuck and Larry decide to enlist the help of lawyer Alex McDonough, who suggests they have a formal wedding ceremony to prove they are committed. The pair travel to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada for a quick same-sex marriage at a wedding chapel, and Chuck moves in with Larry and his children.

Alex invites the couple to a gay benefit costume party. At the end of the evening, the partygoers are confronted by homophobic protesters. Chuck is provoked into punching their leader, and the incident is picked up by the local news. With their apparent homosexuality and marriage revealed, Chuck and Larry are heckled, and their fellow FDNY firefighters refuse to work with them. Their only ally is Fred G. Duncan, an angry, intimidating firefighter who reveals to Chuck that he is gay, and has not felt comfortable telling anyone.

Chuck becomes romantically interested in Alex after the two spend time together, but finds himself unable to get close to her because she thinks he is gay. During a heart-to-heart talk about relationships, the two spontaneously kiss, but Alex, still believing Chuck is gay and married, is shocked and immediately distances herself from Chuck. Meanwhile, city agent Clinton Fitzer arrives to investigate the couple, and the strain on both Larry and Chuck causes them to fight. Larry asserts that Chuck's constant absence to spend time with Alex is jeopardizing their ability to maintain the ruse of their relationship. Chuck tells Larry that he should stop refusing to move on from the death of his wife. Later that evening, a petition circulates to have Chuck and Larry thrown out of the firehouse. Upon discovering it, Larry confronts the crew about personal embarrassments on the job that Chuck and Larry helped them overcome. Afterwards, Chuck and Larry apologize to each other and reconcile their differences.

Eventually, numerous women publicly testify to having slept with Chuck in the recent past, and the couple is called into court to defend their marriage against charges of fraud. They are defended by Alex, and their fellow firefighters arrive in support, having realized all that Chuck and Larry have done for them over the years. Fitzer interrogates both men, and eventually demands the pair to kiss to prove that their relationship is physical. Before they do so, Chuck and Larry are interrupted by FDNY Captain Phineas J. Tucker, who reveals their marriage to be a sham and that they are both straight. He emphasizes that the situation reminded people not to be judgmental, and then offers to be arrested as well, since he knew about the false relationship but failed to report it. This prompts each of the other firefighters to claim a role in the wedding in a show of solidarity. Chuck, Larry, and the other firefighters are sent to jail, but they are quickly released after negotiating a deal to provide photos for an AIDS research benefit calendar, and Chuck and Larry keep their benefits.

Two months later, Fred and Alex's brother, Kevin, are married in Niagara Falls at the same chapel as Chuck and Larry. At the wedding party (which features musical guest Lance Bass), Larry moves on from the death of his wife and talks to a new woman, while Alex agrees to a dance with Chuck.

Long ago, the divine being Nexus the Benevolent used the Rod of Creation to turn the desolate planet of Ushka Bau into a paradise. He then granted humanity the gift of the Six Arts: the Art of Separation, practiced by knights; the Art of Summoning, practiced by conjurors; the Art of Force, practiced by archers; the Art of Change, practiced by enchanters; the Art of the Body, practiced by necromancers; and the Art of the Mind, practiced by sorcerers. After a long age of prosperity, Nexus's envious demonic brother Void the Destroyer stole the Rod and created an age of chaos that lasted 66 years. Nexus and Void engaged in a titanic battle that split the Rod in two, and each fled with half. They further divided their halves into eleven Rings of Power and hid them to keep each other from reassembling the Rod and taking power again.

500 years later, the Rings have yet to be recovered and have passed into legend. However, the six Guildmasters discover strong evidence of the Rings' existence as well as clues to their locations. To prevent Void's minions from reassembling the Rod, each of the Guildmasters decide to charge six of their most promising students with forming a team of five other adventurers from each discipline and finding the Rings. As the Guildmaster Thalmus the Wise prepares the top students of the Academy of the Mind for this quest, he is attacked and killed by Darius, a student who has fallen under Void's influence, and the other students are teleported elsewhere by Thalmus's dying word.

Buc, the Academy of the Mind's most promising student, builds a team – consisting of the knight Slash, the necromancer Mortimer, the archer Feather, the conjuror Alexi and the enchanter Obliky – and sets out to gather the eleven Rings. After retrieving them, Buc and his team take the Rings to Nexus's seat at the Fount of Heaven and defeat Darius, who has become Void's physical vessel. Nexus transports Buc and the Rings to his realm and reassembles the Rod of Creation. Nexus leaves the Rod in Buc's care, claiming that keeping it in either his or Void's possession would upset the balance between them. Upon returning to his world, Buc creates a mighty palace in the Fount of Heaven's place from which he rules from that day forward.

Leo Vincey (Scott) is called from America to the family's ancestral estate in England where his dying uncle John Vincey (Samuel Hinds) and Horace Holly convince him that their ancestor, also named John Vincey, found the fountain of youth 500 years ago, but only his wife returned on the expedition.

Following the route outlined in an old journal, Leo and Holly travel through frozen wastes, as a guide named Tugmore and his daughter Tanya join them on their quest, but Tugmore perishes when he can't resist digging for gold that is frozen near a mountain privy to avalanche. They stumble upon the ancient city of Kor, where they are attacked by cannibals but are saved by She Who Must Be Obeyed and her Minister Billali.

She believes that Leo is the reincarnation of John Vincey — her lover many years ago — and vows to make him immortal like herself to rule this Shangri-La in eternal youth, as she had killed John in a fit of jealousy 500 years ago. Tanya warns Leo that nothing human can live forever. At the end, She asks Leo to step into the Flame of Life with her, so that they can become immortal, complete with trying to trick him into not noticing Tanya being used for a sacrificial ceremony, but he notices and decides to run away with her. After Leo, Holly, and Tanya find the chamber with the flame on their escape attempt, She offers to step in first in the flame. Rather than renewing her youth, She ages hundreds of years, becoming a withered mummy-like creature that dies. Leo, Holly, and Tanya then safely make their escape.

The story begins with Joe's earlier, unsuccessful attempts to acquire a double buggy, and how Mary's suggestion to grow potatoes becomes a profitable venture. Following a string of good luck, Joe decides to buy a double buggy for Mary, to show his appreciation for all the sacrifices she has made over the years of their marriage. The surprise gift strengthens what had been a somewhat unstable marriage.

As 1943 begins, the Race attempts to consolidate its hold over Latin America, Africa, and Australia while it is engaged in a fierce struggle with the advanced nations of the world: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Japan, and Nazi Germany. While capable of resisting the invaders, mankind has been dealt a heavy blow by the nemesis from the stars. The Race maintains its unquestioned air supremacy over the entire world as humans are reduced to moving their ground forces by night and using their own aircraft only in the direst emergencies. With supplies of petroleum severely limited, people have taken to using horse-driven carriages to replace automobiles and kerosene lamps to replace electric lights. But even as the human race huddles in the darkness, physicists and engineers work desperately to develop the first human atomic bombs, which represent what might be the only hope of driving the Race off Earth.

After a rapid conquest of Spain and Portugal and the capitulation of Italy, the Race focuses on driving its forces in France eastward, toward the heart of the German Reich. Among the officers of the Wehrmacht struggling desperately to hold back the tide of the alien forces is Colonel Heinrich Jäger. Fresh from his stay in Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat, Jäger is puzzled by the relationship he has formed with Senior Lieutenant Ludmila Gorbunova, the Ukrainian pilot who flew Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to Bavaria for a conference with the Führer. He is much enamoured with her but wonders if love can develop between two former enemies.

Jäger is given command of a panzer regiment near Belfort and is charged with keeping the Race from reaching the Rhine. Although the latest panzer models, the Panther and the Tiger I, give the Germans a fighting chance, they are still woefully inferior to the Race's landcruisers. For their part, the aliens are stunned that humans are capable of designing and deploying new tank models within such a short space of time, as the Race's rate of technological development is centuries slower. Jäger is abruptly pulled out of frontline service and ordered to assist the German atomic bomb program in Wittelsbach.

In the United States, Jens Larssen, a physicist, leaves Chicago in search of the metallurgical laboratory that has relocated to Denver. After crossing the Great Lakes, he moves swiftly across Minnesota and the Dakotas. Larssen is not so much driven by the need to hasten atomic bomb development as he is by a desire to be reunited with his wife, Barbara. Unfortunately for Jens, under the impression that he is dead, Barbara has started a relationship with Corporal Sam Yeager, a soldier responsible for guarding captured alien prisoners of war. Yeager serves as a translator for the metallurgical lab since he has learned the rudiments of the Race's language. Jens arrives in Denver before the lab and sends a courier out to find Barbara with a message that he remains alive. Barbara learns that her husband is still alive just after she revealed to Yeager that she is pregnant.

In Illinois, after the successful drive by Patton that liberated much of the state, the Race begins to advance upon Chicago once more. US soldiers fight valiantly, but the flat open country gives the alien landcruisers a decisive advantage. Slowly but surely, the Race draws closer and closer toward Lake Michigan.

Jäger manages to return to the front lines in Belfort after an unproductive stay with German physicists working on atomic research in Wittelsbach. Not long afterwards, Wittelsbach is destroyed by an out-of-control nuclear reaction produced by Nazi scientists. The resulting nuclear meltdown alerts the Race to the virtual certainty that Germany is engaged in nuclear research.

It is not alone. On Stalin's behalf, Molotov visits a secret research laboratory several miles north of Moscow that has Soviet researchers struggling to turn the sample of plutonium that had been captured by German-Soviet forces in Ukraine the year before into an atomic device. They have minimal success and Molotov attempts to encourage them with threats of torture and death if they fail. That produces no marked improvement in the advances made by Soviet engineers.

In Japan, a captured killercraft pilot of the Race, Teerts, is interrogated by Japanese researchers attempting to understand the dynamics of nuclear fission. As a pilot, Teerts claims to have limited knowledge of atomic weapons, as he drops them, not builds them. The Japanese refuse to believe him and use torture to make Teerts more cooperative.

In the United States, the metallurgical laboratory finally reaches Denver and begins working on atomic research. Its work is helped by a small shipment of plutonium that Colonel Leslie Groves brings from Boston, where a British submarine had been entrusted with delivering it to the US government. The plutonium is one-fourth of the material stolen from the Race during the German-Soviet operation in Ukraine. It had come into the possession of the British by way of Jewish partisans, who had commandeered a portion of the plutonium consigned to Germany when they briefly held Colonel Jäger in captivity in Poland the previous winter. Unfortunately, the plutonium in question is not enough to build an atomic bomb. The metallurgical lab must produce a substantial amount of the precious plutonium before Americans can hope to wield a nuclear device in the war against the Race.

Jens Larssen meets with his wife upon her arrival in Denver and learns that she has married and become impregnated by Corporal Sam Yeager. In a difficult decision that leaves everyone emotionally upset, she decides to keep the baby and to remain with Yeager. Jens takes the news badly, and his work on the atomic bomb project suffers. To keep him out of trouble, Groves orders Larssen to travel to Hanford and to consider the possibility of transferring the metallurgical lab there to facilitate the production of plutonium. With an M1903 Springfield rifle slung over his shoulder, Jens heads off to Washington State on a bicycle.

Jäger, supervising the efforts to recover plutonium from the melted-down reactor in Wittelsbach, is recruited by SS ''Standartenführer'' Otto Skorzeny to help take back the city of Split from the Race, who have been offering the Independent State of Croatia incentives to turn away from the Germans and toward them. It is also an effort to lure Skorzeny into Split to be killed. However, Skorzeny and Jäger, with superior maps, dig a tunnel into the middle of the Race's garrison, and, with numerous Croat soldiers and FG 42 battle rifles, which are superior to the Race's infantry weapons, completely reduce the garrison. Every member of the Race in Split is either killed or taken prisoner. Among the dead is Fleetlord Atvar's chief intelligence officer, Drefsab.

As the summer of 1943 begins, forces of the Race creep closer to Germany and have reached the outskirts of Chicago. Moscow appears to be on the brink of collapse when the Race advance is abruptly stopped by the human detonation of an atomic bomb, planted as a landmine, between Kaluga and Moscow. The story ends with the balance of power in the scope of the conflict dramatically redefined.

Five teenagers — Kate (Margo Harshman), Zack (Greg Cipes), Vicky, Riff, and Ashley — are on their way to pan for gold during Spring Break when they make a wrong turn. They encounter two strange men, Pig and Garth, who warn them to return home, saying there have been murders in the area. Making their way into town, four of the teens head inside a store, where they meet brothers Simon (Crispin Glover) and Stanley.

Simon is unhelpful, denying the teens requests to buy anything. Frustrated, the group leaves and finds a campsite. Unbeknownst to them, there is someone observing the teens, dressed in a ghillie suit. He chases Ashley through the woods before realizing that she is not 'dream girl' and murders her. The attacker - revealed to be Stanley - begins to cut up her body, saying that he will make her into a present for 'dream girl'.

Back at the store, Zack arrives to find it closed and empty. He lets himself in and discovers numerous bodies hanging from the ceiling, including those of Pig, Garth and Clay. Zack pulls several newspaper articles off the bodies, as he then flees the store. After dark, Simon arrives and tells the teens Stanley is missing. At this moment, a terrified Zack arrives and manages to convince Simon to leave. The teens find their van's tires punctured, stranding them.

The group heads into the forest to look for Ashley and discover that Stanley has made a 'doll' out of Ashley's head, hands, and feet. They are watched by Stanley, who kills Riff, while Simon kills Vicky. Kate is stopped by Simon in his truck, who lies and tells her that the others are safe at his store. Zack sneaks up and climbs into the truck bed as Kate gets into the truck. While they are driving, Simon explains that he and Stanley have lived in the area their entire lives with their parents Quinn and Carrie, and took over the gas station when Quinn and Carrie died. Simon takes Kate to an old campsite where two long-decayed bodies are sitting at a picnic table. He ties her to the table when Stanley appears in his ghillie suit. Suspicious, Simon chops off several of Stanley's fingers with a cleaver, and it's revealed that it is actually Zack in the suit, trying to masquerade as Stanley.

Simon ties Zack to a tree and tortures him. Zack confesses his love to Kate calling her his 'Dream Girl.' This angers Simon and he burns Zack alive. Turning back to Kate, Simon announces that he is also Stanley, having taken over his brother's identity after murdering Quinn and Carrie while the real Stanley is in a coma. Kate seduces Simon, distracting him; he accidentally frees her in the ensuing struggle, allowing her to flee.

Returning to Zack's charred body, Kate promises to kill Simon. Moments later, Simon also approaches the body, vowing to kill her. Kate bursts from Zack's corpse where she was hiding, bringing the cleaver down on Simon's head. He falls to the ground, but when she looks down at where his corpse should be, he is gone. A hand reaches for her just before the film cuts to black.

The film ends with another group of youths arriving at the store asking Simon for directions. Put off by his strange behavior, they leave. Simon goes into the back room and opens a trapdoor, revealing Kate tied up with infant twins before the screen cuts to black.

'''''The Golden One''''' is a combination of two stories. The first story deals with the search for an unknown tomb, one where some artifacts have started to appear on the black market. The second story follows Ramses Emerson as he is sent on another mission behind Turkish lines.

After arriving in Egypt in January, 1917, Amelia acquires a magnificent cosmetic jar with the cartouche removed. Rumors of a new, previously untouched tomb are rife, and this is significant evidence. After a brief stay in Cairo, the family moves on to their home in Luxor. When the Emersons arrive in Luxor, they encounter Joe Albion and his family, a wealthy American collector of antiquities, who make no secret of his desire to deal on the black market. Cyrus Vandergelt is acquainted with Joe Albion, and tells Emerson he would do anything to get what he wanted. This riles Emerson, and relations with the Albions are frosty at best.

Jamil, a former employee and Jumana’s brother, is at the center of the rumors about the tomb. Early in their excavations, the Emersons discover one looted tomb with links to Jamil. They learn that he is manipulating a number of people and even attempts to kill Emerson and Peabody. When his family confronts him, his ancient musket explodes, mortally wounding him. But before he dies, he leaves a clue to the location of the tomb – “in the hand of the God”. The Emerson and Vandergelt expeditions now try to figure out which “hand of the God” Jamil meant.

Just then Ramses is called back into service as an agent. An English spy, claiming to have converted to Islam, has become a tool of the Turks and is now known as Ismail, the Holy Infidel. Ramses is sent to discover if the turncoat is Sethos. It so happens that Ismail is in Gaza, just inside the Turkish lines. Ramses is forced to take a novice agent with him as well, but manages to get into Gaza without much trouble. While trying to get a look at Ismail, Ramses companion fires at Ismail and misses. In the confusion, Ramses is caught but the other agent makes his escape.

The head of the Turkish secret service, Sahin Pasha, takes possession of Ramses, but makes a surprising offer: convert to Islam and marry his daughter, Esin, and he will set Ramses free. While Ramses is left to consider the offer in a dungeon, Esin engineers Ramses’ escape.

Meanwhile, the Emersons, who had secretly arrive in a town just behind the British lines, are ready to come to Ramses aid if needed. They get word of his capture and are working out a rescue plan when Ramses shows up. They prepare to make their getaway when Sethos also appears, with Esin in a rug. They are forced to escape to a temporary hiding place, where they again encounter Sethos. He was indeed Ismail, sent to destroy Sahin Pasha, which he has done by humiliating him. But his work is not done and he returns to Gaza.

As the Emersons are about to leave for Cairo, Sahin appears, hoping to regain his status by returning with both his daughter and Ramses. Though he wounds Ramses, Emerson captures him, and they all return to Cairo. Sahin Pasha is turned over to the authorities, and Esin is sent to a secure home.

When the Emersons return to Luxor, they concoct a story that for most people would be implausible, but does bear some resemblance to previous adventures, so no one asks much about it.

However, the tomb is still undiscovered. The Albions are making it clear that nothing will stop them from getting what they want, and they seek to abuse Jumana’s trust as one means of doing so. Both Bertie Vandergelt and Ramses have encounters with the Albion son.

When Jumana is caught by Peabody sneaking into the compound one night, Peabody assumes the worst and decides to harshly punish her. Peabody is terribly disappointed, and feels that Jumana has abused her position of trust in the family.

But that morning, Cyrus and Bertie appear, unable to contain their excitement. Bertie, with help from Jumana, has found the tomb in the hills above Deir el Medina. The two of them had been climbing for the last few nights around a rock formation that looked like a fist, the “Hand of the God”. It is a royal cache, containing the mummies and funerary times of four of the Wives of the God. Peabody realizes her mistake and for once is contrite about jumping to conclusions.

Sethos reappears, and is amazed at the discovery. He also warns Emerson of the Albions. Sethos considers them unscrupulous, a serious charge coming from Sethos. But the Albions appear again, making it clear that they expect to get some of the items from the tomb. When they are sent away by Emerson and Cyrus, they decide to try force. Sethos warns Emerson, and the Emersons and Vandergelts ambush the Albions and their hired thugs. Caught by Emerson and Vandergelt, the Albions are forced to give up the few items they had bought from Jamil, and then disappear.

The only thing left is the announcement that Ramses and Nefret are going to have a baby.

The story begins in summer, 1907, ten years after the Emersons' expedition into the Nubian desert in ''The Last Camel Died at Noon'', when the Emersons were lured to a Lost Oasis where the remains of a Meroitic - Ancient Egyptian civilization that had avoided the outside world for centuries still survived. It was during that journey that the Emersons brought back Nefret Forth to live with them in England. A messenger from the Lost Oasis now appears at their home in Kent, pleading for help for their friend, King Tarek, and they have no choice but to go to his aid, though they mistrust the young man who claims to be Tarek's younger half-brother.

This time it is Ramses who experiences the feeling of foreboding that normally assails Amelia, as they head off to the Sudan and into the desert to help their friend. Unlike their first trip, they bring a far larger force, in full awareness that the Lost Oasis will no longer be a secret no matter what the outcome of this expedition. It soon becomes apparent that the Emersons are not the only ones interested in the Lost Oasis. They run into too many people who are interested in their travel plans, and ultimately bring some unexpected guests with them. These include a British adventurer who has in his company a mysterious young woman. The girl unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Ramses, but he remains strangely attracted to her, although he is really in love with Nefret.

Upon their arrival, the family finds things have indeed become desperate for King Tarek, who has been deposed by the father of the duplicitous messenger who brought them to the oasis. The usurper's plan is to obtain the endorsement of the Emerson family in order to neutralise any popular resistance this regime. Nefret, who up until now has seemed to miss her old life, is taken from the group and made to resume her position as high priestess. When Amelia catches an intruder in their quarters, she is relieved to find that it is her old enemy and admirer Sethos, and he promises to help rescue Nefret.

Amelia is up to her usual plotting and lists, Emerson is as bombastic as ever, Ramses plays the part of the action hero, and the assistance of Selim and Daoud becomes essential to the Father of Curses and the Sitt Hakim.

Chronologically, this book covers the time period immediately after ''The Ape Who Guards the Balance'', although it was published some years later than the books that follow it chronologically.

In 1922, the Emersons are excavating at Deir el Medina when a melodramatic visitor delivers a challenge—and a solid gold ancient statuette—to them: find out where it came from and why it brings bad luck to its owners. Emerson, of course, doesn't believe in curses, but he does believe someone has robbed a find of historic proportions. When their visitor turns up dead and her stepchildren disappear, everyone except the Emersons believe the murder is a family affair.

Ramses, meanwhile, finds a papyrus which ''he'' suspects to be of historic importance, and an assistant who is not all he seems.

The story begins with Mitchell reminiscing about the first time a cousin noticed that Bill the rooster was a ventriloquist. Not even Bill himself recognised his own peculiar skill, and he always "thought it was another rooster challenging him, and he wanted badly to find that other bird." When Mitchell's neighbour, an Irishman named Page, brings home a big white rooster, the two birds become involved in a vicious cock-fight. Though Bill emerges victorious, Page announces that it was "a grand foight" and bears no malice, yet he is then constantly on the lookout for a fighting-cock that may topple Bill.

Page borrows an experienced game-bird from town. Page and Mitchell's father agree on a fight, and Mitchell is forbidden to attend. Mitchell scales a tree and watches the fight unfold over a fence. Jim, the more experienced bird, runs Bill in circles for a whole hour until the large rooster can no longer move. Jim then gives Bill a "father of a hiding." Bill, his pride completely shattered after a defeat, is “so disgusted with himself that he [goes] under the cask and die[s].”

Howard Carter returns as a featured character, as the Emersons are privy to his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamon.

It tells the tale of an old beggar named Ramu who has had a miserable life. One day Ramu is walking along thinking about his unhappy existence and feeling angry at God. God, at the request of an archangel who felt pity for the beggar, drops a massive diamond on his path in plain sight. The diamond is worth so much that it would feed him and all his descendants for several generations. On the ground, Ramu has decided after some pondering that he should not be angry about his life or blame God because he still has a few things to be grateful for, such as retaining his sight at such an old age. To illustrate to himself how much worse life could be if he were blind, he decides to close his eyes as he walks. Ironically, he does not see the diamond because of this and merrily walks past it, missing it by just inches. God takes back the diamond and puts an ironwood branch further up the path. Back in heaven, God says, "The only difference is that Ramu shall find the branch. It shall serve him as a walking stick until the last of his days." The archangel asks God, "Have you just taught me a lesson, God?" God answers, "I don't know. Have I?"

In this storyline, the Digital World is controlled by an intelligent computer named Yggdrasil. Digimon have multiplied so much that Yggdrasil is unable to handle the load and the Digital Hazard occurs. This leads to the creation of the "New Digital World", which consists of three layers known as Urd (past), Versandi (present), and Skuld (future). Yggdrasil then lets loose the Project Ark as well as the X Program to eliminate any Digimon it no longer wants. However, some Digimon adapt by obtaining a program called the X-Antibody, which strengthens them, changes their appearances, and immunizes them against the X Program. Yggdrasil sends in the thirteen Royal Knights to keep order in the Digital World. After that, three human boys, Kouta, Yuuji, and Shinji, find their way into the Digital World and meet their respective partner Digimon, Dorumon, Ryuudamon and Omnimon X. Kouta and Yuuji resist Yggdrasil and the Royal Knights, while Shinji sides with the computer and the thirteen Digimon. 15 years later, in 2019, the Manga received a sequel titled "Digimon Chronicle X", which followed the story of the Royal Knights and Seven Great Demon Lords fighting against each other in their X forms.

The book centers around twin siblings, Mitch and Amy, who bicker constantly over insignificant things. It chronicles their average daily experiences and their opposing personalities and interests, as well as their sibling rivalry. It also explores how they deal with their respective learning problems: Amy with multiplication and Mitch with reading and spelling. However, it also deals with their problems with a tormentor named Alan Hibbler, who harasses them constantly for no apparent reason until a schoolyard fight leads Amy to realize that his antagonistic behaviors may be linked with his father Judson Hibbler's great notoriety and Alan's poor skills in spelling (the same learning problem as Mitch).

Ramona Quimby has spent most of the summer with her friend Howie Kemp, pounding old bricks into dust in a game called Brick Factory. Brick Factory makes Ramona feel powerful, something that doesn't happen very often since she is the youngest in her family. Longing to be brave and grown-up, Ramona sticks up for her older sister, Beatrice "Beezus" Quimby, when some boys tease about her nickname (calling her "Beezus Jesus" or "Jesus Beezus") by claiming they will go to hell for mocking Jesus. However, Ramona is crushed to realize that instead of considering her a hero, Beezus is embarrassed, and becomes angrier at Ramona for defending her than she is at the boys for teasing her.

By the end of summer, Mother gets a part-time job and some workmen cut a hole in their house to add an extra bedroom (especially since Beezus and Ramona would bicker often when they shared a room). Beezus and Ramona are going to take turns using the new room (for half a year), and Ramona gets to be first, though she finds it frightening to go to sleep in the new room alone.

When first grade starts, Ramona begins learning to read. However, she is convinced that her teacher, Mrs. Griggs, dislikes her. This feeling is worsened by Ramona's tendency to get into trouble. One day when her class is making paper-bag owls for Parents' Night, Ramona sees Susan, her kindergarten nemesis, copying Ramona's owl. Mrs. Griggs sees Susan's owl first and shows it off to the class. Ramona is outraged at Susan for copying as now Ramona's owl isn't special, and destroys both owls. The next day, Ramona is forced to apologize to Susan in front of the whole class, but things improve when the class is nice to her afterward.

One day on her way to school a big dog comes after Ramona, so she takes off her shoe and throws it at him. The dog picks up her shoe and carries it away, forcing Ramona to limp her way back to school. That turns out to be the morning Mrs. Griggs finally chooses Ramona to lead the morning flag salute, and Mrs. Griggs discovers that Ramona is only wearing one shoe. Ramona uses her ingenuity to deal with the situation, and when her shoe is returned, the school secretary compliments her bravery, resulting in her nickname "the Brave".

Three gold miners named Dave Regan, Jim Bently, and Andy Page are sinking a shaft at Stony Creek. The trio own a young retriever dog named Tommy, described as "an overgrown pup... a big foolish, four-footed mate." Andy and Dave, fishing enthusiasts, devise a unique method of catching fish using explosives. The dog picks up an explosive cartridge in its mouth, and runs the fuse through the campfire, prompting the three men to flee. Tommy, thinking it a game, playfully chases down his "two-legged mates," who try everything in their power to escape the cartridge. Jim tries to climb a tree and then drops down a mine shaft, meanwhile Andy has hidden behind a log. When Dave seeks refuge in the local pub, the dog bounds in after him, causing the Bushmen inside to scatter. Tommy comes across a "vicious yellow mongrel cattle-dog sulking and nursing his nastiness under [the kitchen]," who takes the cartridge for himself. A crowd of dogs, curious about this unusual object, gather around the cartridge. The subsequent explosion blows apart the yellow cattle-dog and maims numerous others. For half an hour, the Bushmen who witnessed the spectacle are laughing hysterically. Tommy the retriever trots home after Dave, "smiling his broadest, longest, and reddest smile of amiability, and apparently satisfied for one afternoon with the fun he’d had.".

Taking place many years in the future in another star system, a century long war is waging between the Earth Defense Fleet and the Barrax Empire. Two Earth Defense Commanders, Lori Bergin and Barry Mayers, were returning from a research and destroy mission regarding the latest Barrax technologies on planet Urania, when suddenly a Barrax cruiser materialized behind them, brought their ship in and took the commanders hostage on planet Terrainia. The player's mission is to rescue the Commanders and eliminate all Barrax threats in the process.

Set in the late 1580s, the film very loosely follows the real-life exploits of the 16th century Irish prince Hugh Roe "Red Hugh" O'Donnell. The story begins when Hugh's father, the Chief of the Name, dies, leaving his son as Chief of Clan O'Donnell. With his accession to the throne, an Irish prophecy is seemingly fulfilled which promises independence from Elizabethan and English rule. In response, the Queen's Lord Lieutenant abducts him and imprisons him in Dublin Castle as a hostage for the Clan's good behavior. After a daring escape, he flies across Ireland with the sons of Hugh Roe O'Neill.

The O'Donnell lords see this occurrence as the opportunity to strike back at the foreigners by force, but Hugh convinces them the right plan is to band together with the other clans of the island, and bargain for their freedom from a position of strength. As he prepares for battle, O'Donnell also courts the beautiful Kathleen McSweeney, to further augment the clans of Ireland.

The sketch begins with old man preparing dinner for himself and his beloved dog, Five Bob. Dinner consumed, the man gathers a pick and shovel and travels to a "blackfellow's grave about which he was curious." He digs up the bones, places them in a bag, and starts for home. He discovers the body of a man, parched by the intense Australian sun. After close examination, the deceased man is determined to be a friend of the old man, an alcoholic named Brummy. The old man, somewhat ingeniously, devises a way of carrying Brummy back home, but he is startled by numerous large, greasy black goannas. He wonders why the peculiar lizards are so abundant today. He only discovers later, when he shoots one near the house, that they are attracted to Brummy's body. When the old man returns to his home, he decides that Brummy deserves a respectful funeral. He buries his friend, and decides that something must be said. He is unsure of Brummy's religion, or if he even has a religion at all, but the old man does his best. Presently, he rises, takes up his tools, and walks back to his hut as the sun sinks on the "grand Australian bush."

In the 1700s, a beggar is tossed into London's Newgate jail, along with a pile of papers upon which his unfinished opera is scribbled. The beggar boasts to the other prisoners that his opera, unlike others of the day, is about a real person, the dashing highwayman Captain Macheath, who, dressed in a red coat, holds off the world with a pistol in each hand, seduces women with five notes of a tune, and generally leaps from misfortune. To the beggar's disappointment, the other prisoners point out that his hero Macheath is among them, in irons and behind bars, and Macheath, who is scheduled to be executed the next morning, admits that there is "no arguing with reality." Taking the first page of the opera, Macheath begins singing, and the beggar, encouraged by Macheath's good voice, urges him to continue, until the following story, the beggar's opera, is sung for the prison inmates:

While riding to London, feeling merry and free, Macheath robs a carriage, and steals a kiss and a locket from a maiden. Later, in London, Macheath's wife, Polly Peachum, pines for him. Polly's parents, shopkeepers Mr. Peachum and his wife, are scandalized to learn from their employee Filch that Polly has secretly married the highwayman. To make the best of the situation, as they are always eager to make money, they urge her to lure Macheath into a trap and collect the reward for his capture.

Meanwhile, outside of town, Macheath encounters a carriage ridden by Newgate's jailor Mr. Lockit, Lockit's daughter Lucy and Mrs. Trapes, whom Lockit is wooing. Lucy, who met Macheath when he was once imprisoned, scolds him for taking her virtue without making good on his promise to wed. When Macheath rides off, Mrs. Trapes suggests that Lucy betray him for the reward and give the money to her father.

Later, during a tryst in a hayloft, Polly warns Macheath that her parents are mounting an ambush. Macheath escapes with Polly's help after a swashbuckling fight, then hides in a back room of a tavern, where he is unable to resist socializing with the prostitutes, whom he considers friends. However, prostitute Jenny Diver has been bribed by Peachum and Lockit to betray him, and with the help of her colleagues, Macheath is soon captured.

From his jail cell, Macheath urges Lucy to steal the jail keys and set him free, promising to marry her in return, but then Polly shows up and he is forced to introduce the women to each other. During the night, Lucy steals the keys and releases him, but later Polly sneaks back and, finding Macheath gone from the cell, screams in anguish without thinking, thus drawing attention to his escape. Meanwhile, Macheath disguises himself in the stolen cape and gloves of a lord and slips into a gaming house to avoid making good his promise to unite with Lucy. However, the proprietor recognizes the cape and alerts Lockit and Peachum about the impostor wearing it. Back at the jail, Polly is accused of freeing Macheath and is locked in Lucy's room, where Lucy, after losing track of Macheath, attempts to drug her. When they hear the recaptured Macheath being returned to prison, Lucy and Polly proceed to Macheath's cell and demand that he choose between them. He refuses, as he will soon be hanged and sees no reason to disappoint either of them.

The next morning, riding atop his coffin as it is carted through the streets to the gallows, Macheath waves farewell to the friendly crowd that has gathered to see him off. At the gallows, after kissing both Lucy and Polly goodbye, Macheath is blindfolded and awaits his fate, and the opera comes to its incomplete end.

The real Macheath, who is still in the jail, protests that he should not have to hang twice. After pondering the complaint, the beggar agrees and yells for Macheath's reprieve. The rest of the prisoners join in the chant and mob the turnkey, who comes to investigate the ruckus, allowing Macheath to escape. The highwayman steals a horse from the cart containing his coffin and when safely out of London, sings that his freedom has been returned because of a beggar's opera.

Frank Burly, a private investigator, gets hired by an 18-year-old kid to beat up another detective. Later, in a cafe, he sees a strange man using what appears to be a time machine. He goes over to the guy, but he refuses to tell Burly anything of what happened. Then, Burly is hired to find a precious artifact stolen from a man named Mandible. Frank Burly begins to suspect Mandalible, who claims he is a multi-millionaire, is merely a crazy person, and that the artifact stolen from him doesn't exist.

Burly finds the house of a Professor E. Groggins, which was robbed by Burly's criminal friend Small-Time Charlie. Burly investigates Charlie, and as he digs deeper into the mystery, he gets more threats telling him to back off from the case. Everyone Burly interrogates refuses to tell him about the time machine Burly had found in Groggin's basement-laboratory. Burly is even captured by the criminals of Central City, who drug him and lock him in a cell. He escapes but is lured back in a trap by a beautiful lady named Cola who pretends to be interested in him. Burly is thrown in a prison cell where Groggins and others who have gotten too close to the truth reside.

Everyone seems to be from a different time period, thanks to Groggin's time traveling device, and everyone thinks their time period is better than everyone else's. Groggins and Burly work together to pull off multiple elaborate escapes, but none of them works and Burly finally gets out by shooting himself out of a missile silo, and finds two criminals unrespectfully throwing Groggins' suitcase onto the ground. He takes the suitcase, but doesn't know how to work it and ends up with multiple versions of his past and future selves in the room. Trying to return the Burlys to their time, Frank accidentally ends up in the 1940s, and recruits a scientist to develop a briefcase-like time machine for Burly to use. It only sends him forward five hours, so Burly yells at the scientists the returns the materials.

To make matters worse, Burly is arrested because all his money was minted in the future, but is released when he tells his guard about the future, even though most of it is remembered falsely. Still, Burly has minimal money, and is able to book an unfurnished hotel room for only ten cents and wakes up in the morning refreshed. He discovers that even in this "primitive" time that his detective skills are terrible, so he tries to find work elsewhere. He gets a few day jobs, but at night he tries to invent things that haven't been made yet, like the ball-point pen and penicillin. He also starts making merchandise for events that will happen in the future.

All these ideas fail, though, so Burly retires to spending most of his nights at the local bar, where he wows the other patrons with stories about the future. Soon enough, Burly spots a man who looks like Mandible and is carrying the very artifact Burly was hired to find, as well as the time briefcase. Burly tries to buy the artifact off the man, but he refuses and Burly walks away with only the briefcase. He arrives back in the future, but when Mandible sees him without the artifact, he tells since the man Burly saw with the briefcase gave the artifact to the police and corrupted them, the future is now dystopian and evil. For many months, Burly travels through different time periods and finally finds the artifact, which he returns to Mandible.

Now, Mandible is still poor, but Burly is rich, and he throws Mandible out the window when he sues. Groggins cleans up the timeline, and Burly finally gets to relax.

Part 1

In a cell, Lister and Rimmer are having another furious argument. We are then shown the circumstances that led to their incarceration...

Three days earlier, Kryten's nanobots had rebuilt ''Red Dwarf'', but done so far too large. Lister enters the cockpit, showing off his now non-muscular body, and it emerges that the enlargement is a temporary symptom of the nanobots' restoration process, as it soon turns out that ''Red Dwarf'' is shrinking around ''Starbug''. Suddenly, the ship is sucked into an air vent. With ''Red Dwarf'' almost completely shrunk, the corridors rip off the rear and middle section of ''Starbug'' before the cockpit is sent flying into a cargo bay where it crash-lands, and the crew manage to escape mere seconds before it explodes.

The crew are approached by two figures recognised by Lister... Selby and Chen. The nanobots have not only restored ''Red Dwarf'' but also its crew. Captain Hollister then arrives with a Security Officer who places Lister under arrest for stealing and crashing a ''Starbug'', flying without a pilot's licence and bringing two stowaways (The Cat and Kryten) aboard. Everyone is placed in custody and Lister is confined to quarters. He then asks Holly (who is still loaded into Lister's watch and therefore hidden from the crew of ''Red Dwarf'') what will happen if they are found guilty. Holly explains that they will get two years in the brig. Lister is confused, as ''Red Dwarf'' does not have a brig, but Holly explains that there is a top-secret prison facility contained aboard the ship, holding hundreds of inmates who were being transported to a containment facility. Unfortunately, they have all been resurrected too.

Just as he thinks things cannot get any worse, Rimmer enters the bunkroom. However, this is not the Rimmer that left ''Starbug'' to take on his alter-egopersona of Ace, but rather the Rimmer that was aboard ''Red Dwarf'' before the accident that wiped out the crew. Lister tells Rimmer the whole story and asks for help in escaping. In exchange, he offers Rimmer a copy of the crew's personal and confidential files that exist on ''Starbug''. Rimmer initially refuses, until Lister tells him that with the information, he can get the promotion to officer status like he has always wanted. Rimmer agrees and Lister gives him his watch which Holly has been loaded into.

The Cat and Kryten are taken for medical and psychiatric evaluation. Unfortunately, Kryten's erratic personality does not go over well, and he is recommended to be restored to his factory settings.

Aboard the burnt out wreckage of the cockpit of ''Starbug'', Rimmer finds the disc with the crew's files. He also finds two strange tubes that are the positive viruses that Lister picked up from a Dr. Hildegarde Lanstrom, years earlier. Rimmer quickly tries out sexual magnetism, and walks down the corridor where all the women admire him. Rimmer notes to himself that 'the world loves a bastard'.

Part 2

Lister, Kochanski, Kryten and The Cat are brought before a board of enquiry, and Captain Hollister requests their permission to use psychotropic testing during their trial. The four agree and Captain Hollister asks them to sign a letter of consent each and place them in envelopes provided. Later, Kryten is taken away for a physical examination and, due to his lack of a penis, is classified as a woman. They also offer Kryten a deal: if he agrees to undergo a system restoration, then the charges against him will be dropped. Kryten does not want to say yes, but cannot say no to superior officers. Kochanski tells Kryten to imagine the officers sitting on the toilet to help him; Kryten finds it works, then imagines Kochanski sitting on a toilet for his own amusement.

Later, Rimmer visits Captain Hollister with a report detailing the dangers of loose drive plates. Hollister is impressed by the in-depth report, and Rimmer (using information from the confidential reports) continues by giving Hollister a blueberry muffin as an anniversary present and some pile cream. Hollister gives Rimmer an envelope and asks him to post it; Rimmer seals the envelope before noticing that it is addressed to him. Hollister tells Rimmer that he is inviting him to the Captain's Table that evening. Rimmer cannot believe how well the scheme is working and visits Lister in his cell. However, Rimmer has decided to end the deal to help Lister escape, and has copied the confidential reports, meaning Lister does not have to supply him with the information. Rimmer then tells Lister that he has the positive viruses and intends to use them. He leaves, but does not realise that Lister has managed to expose himself to the luck virus, which he uses to guess the codes needed to escape the cell.

Kryten is asked for his decision regarding getting his corrupted systems repaired, and the mechanoid still cannot say no. In order to give him the courage, he steals a security guard's gun and (taking Kochanski's advice too seriously) and forces the superior officers present to sit on toilets with their pants down. Amused by this, Kryten finally refuses to have his systems restored; however, his actions have caused the crew to decide to proceed anyway. Afterwards, Kryten has been returned to his old ways of servitude and politeness. Lister breaks Kochanski out of her quarters and, while in the lift, decides to make the most of the opportunity to try out the sexual magnetism virus on himself. Although it works at first and Kochanski practically throws herself at her former boyfriend, she returns to normal after a few seconds and Lister realises that the positive viruses cancel each other out. Later, after getting The Cat released, the three look for Kryten so they can all escape, only to discover that he does not recognise them and has returned to his factory settings. Lister, Kochanski and The Cat start looking for a new disguise (since The Cat refuses to wear anything over his over his normal clothes). Suddenly, The Cat hits on a great idea...with black mop- heads and fake teeth with overbites, they can pretend to be the Dibbley family.

At dinner, Rimmer has taken the sexual magnetism virus in a very large dose and charms everyone. While the women look at him adoringly, Rimmer impresses Hollister with his theories on future echoes and universes where time runs backwards. Rimmer soon finds the sexual magnetism virus is not so great, as every time he gets up to fetch refreshments, a female guest follows him and forces him to have sex with her.

Lister, Kochanski and The Cat are bluffing their way past the crew with their geeky disguises and claim to be computer programmers when they run into Kryten again, who begins to recognise them. Knowing that recognising them will cause him to feel happy while also exposing them to the danger of being discovered, Kryten feels ambivalence, an emotion he was trying to master before. This undoes the system restoration and his settings return to normal. The four continue their escape from the ship.

After yet another sexual encounter, Hollister discusses the psychotropic testing he is conducting on the others and reveals that Lister and the others merely believe they are escaping when they are really in an artificial reality where their actions are being monitored. Rimmer realises that Lister could end up mentioning the deal they had regarding the confidential files, and land him in a heap of trouble; thus he excuses himself and scrambles to the AR suite. On his journey, he decides to try to regain some of his self-control and injects his groin with anaesthetic. However, it spreads to his left leg, and he is forced to hobble to the Artificial Reality suite while the female crew still admire him.

Part 3

Lister, Kryten, Kochanski and The Cat make it (or rather, they think they have made it) to a holding bay and sneak aboard ''Blue Midget''; however, the attractive controller tells The Cat he needs clearance. In order to prove that he is capable of handling the ship, as well as impressing the woman, he begins an impromptu dance routine with ''Blue Midget'' as his partner. Amazingly, this ploy works and the flight controller agrees to a date with The Cat who is more than ready to stay behind and get ready, before Lister forces them to leave.

Rimmer reaches the Artificial Reality suite, and blackmails the officer on duty into leaving, using the confidential information. In the simulation, the crew begin their search for the nanobots. Lister then begins to discuss the deal he made with Rimmer; however, Rimmer begins to edit out all mention of his name and the agreement. The crew, in the simulation, notice the jumps in their actions and conversation and realise that the whole escape attempt is a simulation designed to test their responses (having been knocked out when they licked the envelopes at the earlier hearing). Lister realises that they have actually proved their innocence, as they have indeed been trying to track down the nanobots who resurrected the crew. Rimmer, desperate to protect himself, then begins more edits to make Lister and the others seem guilty. Deciding they need to get out of the simulation, the crew search for the emergency exit which is hidden by a cryptic clue. Amazingly, the Cat is the one to work out that the button marked 'E-Eleven-T' is the trap door (as eleven is XI in Roman numerals). Pressing the button, the four then find themselves as plasticine characters trapped in the simulation's screen saver. The Cat once again finds the emergency exit (in the form of a ketchup bottle, or "power source"), and the four leave again.

The crew wake in the Artificial Reality suite to find Rimmer trying furiously to place them back inside; however, he is quickly on the run as the sexual magnetism virus causes Kochanski to lust after him. Hobbling to the lift, Rimmer is protected from her advances by the others while Lister tells him that taking the luck virus will cure the sexual magnetism virus. Thanks to this, Rimmer, his leg and an embarrassed Kochanski are returned to normal. The crew are now forced to take Rimmer with them as they make a real escape attempt.

The five make it to ''Blue Midget'' and once again, a flight controller demands clearance, and this one is far from attractive. The Cat decides to forgo the dance and ''Blue Midget'' leaves the ship in a hurry. While making plans to pick up supplies from the ''SS Einstein'', talk turns to the Theory of relativity. Naturally Holly is unable to recall what it actually means, but takes offence at being labelled an idiot and reveals that he created the nanobots that resurrected the crew! He explains that ever since he brought Lister out of stasis, he has had one directive: to keep Lister sane, which he does by finding distractions and ways to keep him occupied. Everyone is shocked that Holly nearly got them thrown in the brig, but Holly tells them they still might end up there...everyone is still in Artificial Reality and so is Rimmer.

From his office, Captain Hollister discusses the events with the original version of Holly who has an IQ of 6,000. It turns out that the Captain suspected Rimmer of being in league with Lister and the others, when he came to his office with so much knowledge and had him lick one of the psychotropic envelopes when he invited him to the Captain's table. Lister and the others are found not guilty of the charges against them based on their actions in the Artificial Reality suite...but now have a new charge brought against them; using confidential information for their own gain. Of this, everyone is found guilty and are sentenced to two years in the brig. The five are released from Artificial Reality and realise they still have the positive viruses (since they have not really been used), only for Captain Hollister to confiscate the luck virus to send for testing. As they are photographed in their prison uniforms, Holly realises that he has buggered up again.

Below, the crew are welcomed by Warden Ackerman to 'The Tank'. While this is going on, Lister – still in possession of the sexual magnetism virus – empties the tube over Rimmer as revenge for his actions earlier. Rimmer then realises that he is becoming very popular with the male inmates.

The episode begins with a few lines of text explaining that the starship ''Hermes'' has been destroyed by a synthetic, highly corrosive micro-organism. An escape pod from the ship carries a lone survivor, Talia Garrett. The pod and the woman are picked up by ''Red Dwarf'', but it is revealed that the microbe has also been brought on board when part of the empty escape pod dissolves away.

Now some time into their prison sentence, the Dwarfers have been put on probation for good behaviour. Arnold Rimmer is attending to Captain Hollister as he recovers from yellow fever. Hollister notices that Rimmer has tried to slip in a form pardoning him from all crimes. Rimmer explains his ambition to become an officer someday, perhaps even a captain. Hollister tells him he is not officer material and dismisses him as Talia enters. It seems that the Captain and Talia know each other from the past. Rimmer, disgusted at the Captain's success with women and his own failure in that regard, leaves. In the corridor he attempts to steal some chocolate from the vending machine, only for the AI of the machine to promise revenge. Rimmer tells the machine that the day that happens he'll be captain of the ship.

Meanwhile, back in The Tank, Kryten tells Lister that he is changing Miss Kochanski's calendar, as she had earlier complained to him that it was "The wrong time of the month". Lister realises what is going on and instructs Kryten secretly on how to behave. Kochanski returns to her cell and discovers Kryten has attempted to celebrate her period with a banner that reads 'Have A Fantastic Period' as well as giving her a gift-wrapped tampon and encouraging her to try it on and give it a twirl. Kochanski makes Kryten realise he's been tricked.

Later, in Lister and Rimmer's cell, they discover that Kryten, in an act of revenge, has hidden Baxter's illegal moonshine in their cell, just after Holly informs them of a cell inspection. Knowing that being caught with it will cost them probation, and with the water tank full the two have no choice but to drink the hooch. As a result, both are drunk when Ackerman arrives for the inspection. When Baxter finds out, believing his hooch was stolen by Rimmer and Lister, he threatens to finish off the two, now in sickbay, sleeping off the stomach pump. The two decide they need to escape. Kryten and Kochanski pretend to be ill to land in sickbay, while the Cat is forced to disguise himself as a nurse after his attempts to get beaten up only result in the toughest prisoner in The Tank offering to be his bitch. As the Dwarfers escape they find that the microbe from the ''Hermes'' is now eating away at ''Red Dwarf''. They decide to tell Hollister (against Rimmer's advice), who then announces that ''Red Dwarf'' will be abandoned—however, due to a shortage of escape craft, the prisoners will be left behind to die.

Now that the Dwarfers have the run of the ship, Kryten and Kochanski devise a plan which involves entering a mirror universe where everything is opposite; negative becomes positive and a virus becomes an antidote. Kryten builds a prism laser and directs it at a mirror to create a dimensional gateway. Rimmer crosses over with a sample of the virus, only for the device to break and trap him in the mirror universe. He realises he is not a failure in this universe but is instead Captain, and berates the alternative Hollister, now a 2nd Technician, for being useless. When Talia comes in, Rimmer, thinking she is his lover, snogs her, only to be told she is his spiritual advisor. Rimmer quickly goes to the science lab to talk to the professor, the alternative Cat, who knows the formula for the antidote (Cesiumfrancolithicmyxialobidiumrixydixydoxidexidroxhide). Given the complicated name, Rimmer asks for it to be written down.

Rimmer triumphantly returns to his universe with the formula written down only to find ''Red Dwarf'' a flaming inferno falling apart with the others gone. The dispensing machine tells him that the other Dwarfers had repaired the prism and followed him into the mirror universe and Rimmer is now the ship's Captain since he's now the only crew member remaining. Rimmer tries to return to the mirror universe, but the microbe has destroyed the laser. Believing it to be his only hope, he prepares to create the antidote but the dispensing machine points out that the formula he has written down is now the formula for the virus, having reverted into its mirror opposite. After exchanging insults, the machine finally gets its own back on Rimmer by launching a can at his head and hitting him, knocking him to the ground and causing the now useless slip of paper containing the formula to burn up from the surrounding flames.

The episode ends with the Grim Reaper, played by series director Ed Bye, coming to claim Rimmer as Adagio for Strings plays in the background. Rimmer kicks Death in the crotch and runs off down the flaming corridor, claiming that "Only The Good Die Young" as Death winces "That's never happened before ..." The episode ends with an ominous "The End" caption, but is soon refuted with its sudden erasure and replacement with a defiant "THE SMEG IT IS".

The story is told through the eyes of Willis Seward "Willie" Keith, an affluent but callow young graduate of Princeton University. Following a mediocre living as a nightclub piano player, he signs up for midshipman school at Columbia University with the United States Navy to avoid being drafted into the United States Army during World War II. He endures inner conflicts over his relationship with his domineering mother and with May Wynn, a beautiful red-haired nightclub singer, the daughter of Italian immigrants. After barely surviving a series of misadventures that earn him the highest number of demerits in his class, he is commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve and assigned to the destroyer minesweeper U.S.S. ''Caine,'' an obsolete warship converted from a post-World War I-era destroyer.

Willie, with a low opinion of the Navy, misses his ship when it leaves on a combat assignment. Rather than catch up with it, he plays piano for an admiral who has taken a shine to him. He has second thoughts after reading a last letter from his father, who has died of melanoma. But he soon forgets his guilt in the round of parties at the admiral's house. Eventually, he reports aboard the ''Caine.'' The ensign immediately disapproves of the ship's decaying condition and slovenly crew. He attributes these conditions to a slackness of discipline by the ship's longtime captain, Lieutenant Commander William De Vriess.

Wouk's ship Destroyer/Minesweeper ''USS Zane'' after repair at Mare Island, San Francisco, September 1943, Note forward anti-aircraft gun, and three smokestacks Willie's lackadaisical attitude toward what he considers menial duties brings about a humiliating clash with De Vriess when Willie forgets to decode a communique announcing that De Vriess will soon be relieved. De Vriess is relieved by Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, a strong, by-the-book figure, whom Willie at first believes to be just what the rusty ''Caine'' and its rough-necked crew needs. But Queeg has never handled a ship like this before, and he soon makes errors that he is unwilling to admit. The ''Caine'' is sent to San Francisco for an overhaul, in an admiral's hope that the captain will make further mistakes elsewhere. Before the ship departs, Queeg browbeats his officers into selling their liquor rations to him. In a breach of regulations, Queeg smuggles the liquor off the ship, and when it is lost, he blackmails Willie into paying for it. Willie sees May on leave, and after unsuccessfully attempting to seduce her, decides he has no future with a woman of a lower social class. He resolves to let the relationship die by not replying to her letters.

As the ''Caine'' begins its missions under his command, Queeg loses the respect of the crew and the loyalty of the wardroom through a series of incidents. Tensions aboard the ship cause Queeg to isolate himself from the other officers, who snub him as unworthy, believing him an oppressive coward. At one point, during the invasion of Kwajalein, Queeg is ordered to escort low-lying landing craft to their line of departure. But instead, Queeg orders the ''Caine'' to throw over a yellow dye marker to mark the spot, and the ''Caine'' hastily leaves the battle area. The officers nickname Queeg "Old Yellowstain", a nickname that implies cowardice.

The dynamic, intellectual communications officer, Lieutenant Thomas Keefer, who had initially coined the nickname of "Old Yellowstain" for Queeg, suggests to the ''Caine's'' executive officer, the dutiful Lieutenant Stephen Maryk, that Queeg might be mentally ill. Keefer directs Maryk to "Section 184" of the Navy Regulations, under which a subordinate can relieve a commanding officer in extraordinary circumstances.

Climax

Maryk keeps a secret log of Queeg's eccentric behavior and decides to bring it to the attention of Admiral Halsey, commanding the Third Fleet. Keefer reluctantly supports Maryk, then gets cold feet and backs out, warning Maryk that his actions will be seen as mutiny. Soon afterward, the ''Caine'' is caught in a typhoon, an ordeal that sinks three destroyers. At the height of the storm, Queeg's paralysis of action convinces Maryk that he must relieve the captain of command to prevent the loss of the ship. Willie, as Officer of the Deck, supports the decision. Maryk turns ''Caine'' into the wind and rides out the storm. This sequence of events and its resolution marks the climax and most thrilling portion of the novel, and it parallels Wouk's experiences as Executive Officer aboard the destroyer minesweeper ''USS Southard'' in Okinawa, during Typhoon Ida in September 1945.

The court-martial

Maryk is tried by court-martial for "conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline" instead of "making a mutiny". Willie and John Stilwell, the enlisted helmsman (he is a gunner's mate second class) during the typhoon, are to be tried depending on the outcome of Maryk's trial. In the courtroom, Keefer distances himself from any responsibility for the relief. Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, a naval aviator who was an attorney in civilian life, represents Maryk. His opinion, after the captain was found sane by three Navy psychiatrists, is that Maryk was legally unjustified in relieving Queeg. Despite his own disgust with Maryk's and Willie's actions, Greenwald decides to take the case after deducing Keefer's role.

During the trial, Greenwald unrelentingly cross-examines Queeg until he is overcome by stress. Greenwald's attacks on Queeg result in Maryk's acquittal and the dropping of charges against Willie. Maryk, who had aspired to a career in the regular Navy, is later sent to command a Landing Craft Infantry, a humiliation that ruins his Naval career ambitions. Queeg is transferred to a naval supply depot in Iowa.

At a party celebrating both the acquittal and Keefer's success at selling his novel to a publisher, an intoxicated Greenwald calls Keefer a coward. He tells the gathering that he feels ashamed of having destroyed Queeg on the stand because Queeg and the other regular armed-forces officers all did the necessary duty of guarding America in the peacetime Navy, which people like Keefer saw as beneath them; and that their disdain for and subsequent mistreatment of Queeg is what led to his inability to take action during the typhoon. Greenwald asserts that men like Queeg kept Greenwald's Jewish mother from being "melted down into a bar of soap" by the Nazis. He calls Keefer, not Maryk, "the true author of 'The ''Caine'' Mutiny'". Greenwald throws a glass of champagne, "the yellow wine", in Keefer's face, thereby bringing the term "Old Yellowstain" full circle, first as a derogatory name for Queeg, and then back to the novelist.

Willie returns to the ''Caine'' in the last days of the Okinawa campaign as its executive officer. Keefer is now the captain, and his behavior as captain is similar to Queeg's. The ''Caine'' is struck by a kamikaze, an event in which Willie discovers that he has matured into a naval officer. Keefer panics and orders the ship abandoned, but Willie remains aboard and rescues the situation by heroically dousing the fires.

Keefer, discharged after the war ends, is ashamed of his cowardly behavior during the kamikaze attack, especially because his brother Roland had died saving his ship from kamikaze fire. Willie becomes the last captain of the ''Caine''. He receives a Bronze Star Medal for his actions following the kamikaze—and a letter of reprimand for his part in unlawfully relieving Queeg. The findings of the court-martial have been overturned after a review by higher authority. Willie agrees in retrospect that the relief was unjustified and probably unnecessary.

Willie keeps the ''Caine'' afloat during another typhoon and brings it back to Bayonne, New Jersey, for decommissioning after the end of the war. On reflection, he decides to ask May (now a blonde and using her real name of Marie Minotti) to marry him. However, this will not be as easy as he once thought, as she is now the girlfriend of a popular bandleader, for whom she is the vocalist. The book ends with Willie's and May's situation unresolved, but Willie is still determined to convince May to become his wife.

The following synopsis and cast are taken from the film. The play's plot is very similar.

Rafe Crompton (James Mason) works in a weaving mill. He is a proud man but not a rich man. He lives in a garden city style council house beyond the standard brick terraces of the town. At the end of the week he gathers the various wages from his children and passes it to his wife, Daisy (Diana Coupland) who with Florence the eldest daughter (Hannah Gordon) keeps the family budget in order, making allowances for lending neighbours cash for emergencies such as the repossession of their hire purchase TV.

The younger daughter Hilda (Susan George) is seen as being a bit aloof and she refuses to eat the herring which has been prepared for "tea". Her father determines to serve it to her every day until she eats it.

The sons Harold and Wilfred (Rodney Bewes and Len Jones) are shocked when a box is delivered containing a fine overcoat together with a receipt for 40 guineas.

Mr Crompton likes the family to stand around the piano and sing hymns.

The herring issue comes to a head when the herring disappears. It is found outside being eaten by the cat. However, Mr Crompton does not believe the herring was taken by the cat. He makes Wilfred swear on the bible that he did not move the herring. Wilfred faints under the pressure. This precipitates both daughters to leave. Florence goes to live with her fiancé Arthur. Hilda goes to stay with the neighbours, the Duckworths. However, this proves to be a step down rather than up.

Mr Duckworth (Frank Windsor) sits around in a filthy vest making demands on his long-suffering wife (Avril Elgar) while his daughter (Adrienne Posta) eats a banana wrapped in bread. Moreover it appears that Hilda is pregnant. Her mum pawns the new overcoat to give money to help her. The neighbour Mrs Duckworth also shows her how to break into the bureau to get at the cash box. From this the family starts to crumble when Mr Crompton discovers the losses.

Mrs Crompton runs off in the rain. Rafe finds her under a bridge, staring into the canal, possibly considering suicide. He says he doesn't care about the coat or the money.

Meanwhile the boys pack and prepare to also leave.

As Mr and Mrs Compton walk home everything is resolved. He even considers that Hilda refused to eat her herring as she is pregnant, comparing her to when his wife was pregnant. Rafe also says that he will give Hilda his love and protection if she is pregnant. At home he confesses he has always known of her trickery with the housekeeping money but as a sign of trust gives her the key to the bureau and cashbox. Florence is persuaded to stay home until she marries. They also know Hilda is pregnant but ask her to also stay. She accepts. The boys are free to leave but choose not to.

The film ends with Mr Crompton playing the piano and Hilda singing a hymn while the rest of the family gather round on the chairs in the living room. They are all reunited again.

The Sesame Street gang have gone on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Big Bird has arranged to meet with Snuffy at the museum but before he can, it is closing time. Big Bird decides to go off and look for Snuffy. Before the group can leave, they realize Big Bird is missing and run all through the museum looking for him. The chase has them going through different exhibits at high speed and missing, spotting, and chasing him. After a bit, they give up, only to find that they are locked in the museum overnight. They decide to go back out and look for Big Bird and look at all the exhibits while they are at it.

Big Bird eventually finds Snuffy and they wander the Egyptian exhibit and encounter an Egyptian prince named Sahu (Aram Chowdhury) and his cat who have been cursed to remain on Earth until he answers the question "Where does today meet yesterday?" Through drawings, Sahu explains his dilemma. A demon appears to ask Sahu a question. If he does not know or answers incorrectly, the demon vanishes until the next night. If he answers correctly, he will then be taken to Osiris, who shall weigh Sahu's heart against a feather. If his heart is lighter, then he can rejoin his parents among the stars, but if it is heavier he will forever remain on earth. Big Bird considers all this too daunting and instead suggests Sahu remain on Earth and become "the only 4,000 year old kid on Sesame Street". However, Snuffy thinks it is only fair they help Sahu be reunited with his parents, and Big Bird agrees they should work on the riddle.

Meanwhile, the group has split up and are all in different exhibits. Bob and Cookie Monster find themselves looking at pictures with food in them. While Cookie Monster tries to eat the pictures, Bob points out to him a sign that says "Please don't eat the pictures". He replies with "Oh, this going to be a long night". He later sings the song "Don't Eat the Pictures" about this. Oscar finds an exhibit of Greek and Roman statues that have been broken by natural disasters. He looks in and breaks into song on how beautiful they are to him. Grover finds an exhibit filled with armor from medieval times and thinks a suit of Maximilian armour is a guy named "Max" and tries to befriend him by changing into his Super Grover costume and singing a song. Bert and Ernie view the painting of ''Washington Crossing the Delaware'', to which Bert comments on the dedication of Washington and his men, but Ernie comments how he was very silly to cross in the winter and should have waited until Easter or taken the George Washington Bridge.

As the night passes, Big Bird and Snuffy continue to try to figure out the answer to the question. Soon, just before midnight, Big Bird unknowingly figures out the answer is "a museum". When the demon appears that night, the question is answered correctly and Sahu is sent to Osiris (Fritz Weaver) to have his heart weighed. When the feather to weigh his heart doesn't appear, Big Bird offers one of his to help. But when Sahu's heart is too heavy, Big Bird claims that it wasn't fair since Sahu was on Earth for 40 centuries and he was so alone his heart would be heavy, so he can't become a star.

After this, Sahu's heart becomes lighter and he is now ready to join his parents and take his cat. Big Bird and Snuffy then exit the museum, look up into the night sky, and see four stars in a straight line (representing Sahu, his parents, and his cat), and are glad that they reunited Sahu with his parents. When morning comes, Big Bird finds the group and Snuffy is not there. He got up early and left to get to "Snufflegarden". Bob commends Cookie Monster for behaving himself inside the museum and rewards him by saying he can have anything for sale on a hot dog cart. Cookie Monster, in a fit of hunger and gladness, elects to eat everything, even the cart itself.

After the credits, Big Bird pretends to be a statue. He encourages the viewers to visit their local museum, and comments on how staying perfectly still is tiring and wonders how statues can do it.

Jack Sands, the story's narrator, is a spaceship pilot down on his luck. In September 2111, he is about to be evicted from a flophouse when he is recruited by his old friend Captain Harris Henshaw to co-pilot an expedition to Europa. Sands is one of only two survivors of a previous visit to the Jovian moon. The other was his drug-addled co-pilot Kratska, who crashed the expedition's ship, the ''Hera'', while landing it on Earth. While Sands lay unconscious in a hospital, Kratska put the blame for the crash on him, ruining his reputation. Kratska has since disappeared.

Sands' new co-pilot is Claire "The Golden Flash" Avery, whose sole qualification was winning the circumlunar Apogee race; more by sheer luck and suicidal risk-taking than by skill, in Sands' opinion. The other members of the expedition are the chemist Stefan Coretti and the biologist Gogrol.

Sands has proof of Avery's poor piloting ability during the landing on Europa, when he is forced to take over to prevent her from crashing the ''Minos''. His suspicions are aroused when he realizes the crew of the ''Minos'' are doing no actual exploring.

One day, he and Avery return from gathering food to find Henshaw shot dead and Coretti wounded by Gogrol. The biologist forces the two pilots into the next valley and then crosses back over the airless ridge connecting them wearing an air helmet. He takes their helmets with him, so they can't follow. Avery then tells Sands the real purpose of the mission: Captain Gunderson of the ''Hera'' had discovered vast deposits of protactinium on the previous expedition, and worked out a process for using it as a power source. Gunderson was lost in the crash, along with his notes, but it was hoped that he had left a copy behind on Europa. Now Gogrol has found the notes.

Gogrol returns because he needs one of them to pilot the ship to one of the human settlements on Io. He shoots Sands in the leg and abducts Avery; when she passes out on top of the ridge, he picks her up and carries her, then tosses his pistol down to Sands with one shot left, so Sands can commit suicide. Instead, Sands shoots a native bladder bird and uses its air sac to keep breathing as he gives chase. He catches up to Gogrol in the darkened spaceship control room, finally recognizing him as Kratska. Sands sends Avery outside to retrieve Coretti; Kratska chooses that moment to attack Sands, but Sands manages to kill Kratska before passing out.

When Sands comes to, he is travelling in space aboard the ''Minos'', which Avery has piloted to Io. Sands enters the control room in time to watch her make a perfect landing.

Following a cataclysm, the earth becomes an immense desert in which the scarcity of drinkable water renders it a valuable commodity. The story centers around Juju, a teenage boy who belongs to one of the gangs which prevail on behalf of the new organizations, and Rael, a girl who will perhaps be able to save humanity.

Ryo is a boy roughly the same age as the older DigiDestined, which is about 11. He lives with his parents in a comfortable two-story house (hinting that Ryo's family is at least well-off due to high house prices in much of Japan and the fact that Ryo got a laptop for Christmas). On December 31, 1999, while chatting online a blackout occurs and Ryo's mother asks him to check the fuse-box. Before he can do so, however, a voice calls out to him from his computer, which is displaying a machine he's never seen before. The voice pleads to him to touch the device, which Ryo (rather naively) does.

The next thing he knows, he's suddenly in the middle of a forest and confronted by Agumon, Tai's Digimon partner. After Agumon explains that Ryo was summoned because a powerful evil Digimon called Millenniummon captured the DigiDestined, then warped the very essence of time and resurrected previously defeated evil Digimon such as Devimon and Myotismon, Ryo quite understandably finds it all hard to believe and thinks he's having a nightmare from too many video games.

He quickly realizes he has no choice but to help, however, and thus begins his quest to rescue the DigiDestined and defeat Millenniumon. Along the way, he befriends a number of Digimon allied to the DigiDestined, including Leomon, Andromon, Piximon and many others. He also encounters villains previously defeated by the Chosen Children beginning with Devimon, then Etemon, Myotismon and the Dark Master Piedmon before confronting Milleniumon. (Depending on which game, he takes on the form of one of his two components, either Machinedramon or Kimeramon). After a fierce battle, Ryo and his Digimon comrades are able to vanquish the villain and rescue Tai, the last of the DigiDestined being held prisoner. His task done, Ryo bids his new friends a tearful farewell and returns home, where his parents note he seems to have grown up a bit.

For 400 years, there was a family of thieves stealing money and priceless property, particularly those items that were originally illegally stolen. The main motivation is that anything and everything can be stolen, no matter how much they protect that item. And in those years, that thief was only known by one name, Mouse.

In the latest version, a young college art teacher named Muon Sorata is the latest to take up the name of Mouse. He is surrounded by three highly devoted and attractive assistants who help him pull off heists of art museums and landmark towers. The thieves have the power and resources to steal entire buildings and take structures out to sea but never get caught. Mouse is also known for not abandoning those who serve him, even if it means his capture.

Part I

When Commander Sisko, Dr. Bashir, and Jadzia Dax beam down to Earth from the ''Defiant'', an accident occurs and they materialize in San Francisco in the year 2024.

Sisko and Bashir are found by a pair of police officers, who believe them to be vagrants and warn them to get off the streets. They are escorted to a "Sanctuary District", a walled-off ghetto that is used to contain the poor, the sick, the mentally disabled, and anyone else who cannot support themselves. Sisko realizes they have arrived just days before the "Bell Riots", a violent confrontation in the Sanctuary District that Sisko recalls as a watershed moment in human history. Dozens will be killed, including a man named Gabriel Bell, the leader of the demonstration. Bell will become a hero because of his self-sacrifice while protecting hostages, and public attitudes toward the disadvantaged will begin to change. Unable to find a building to sleep in, and unwilling to get involved with a nascent movement to air the residents' grievances for fear of altering history, Sisko and Bashir live in the street.

Meanwhile, Dax is found by a prominent businessman, Chris Brynner, who arranges accommodations for her. Later attending an affluent party as his guest, she realizes that Sisko and Bashir may have been taken into the Sanctuary District and persuades him to help confirm her suspicions.

Within the district, a fight breaks out when Sisko and Bashir resist attempts to take the ration cards they have been issued. A man who comes to their aid is killed, and Sisko and Bashir discover after the fact that he was Bell. Sisko quickly realizes that due to their presence, the course of history stands to be radically changed, since Bell is no longer present to safeguard the hostages in the historical narrative. The district residents begin to riot, and one group storms the processing center and takes the employees hostage. Sisko and Bashir return there, and Sisko assumes Bell's identity and takes leadership of the revolt in an effort to keep the hostages safe.

Back in the 24th century, the crew left on the ''Defiant'', Major Kira, Odo, and Chief O'Brien, lose contact with Earth as all traces of the Federation suddenly vanish; Bell's death has radically altered the timeline. O'Brien calculates several possible time periods in which Dax, Sisko, and Bashir might have arrived, and Kira and O'Brien begin transporting to one period at a time in order to search for them.

Part II

Sisko tries to ensure that no one gets hurt during the standoff, while at the same time understanding that Bell must die at the end of it. He makes demands to the governor, insisting they be given airtime to express their grievances. He wants the Sanctuary Districts closed and their residents to be given opportunities to earn an honest living.

Dax watches news coverage of the riots from Brynner's office, knowing Sisko and Bashir are caught in the Sanctuary District and are in danger, and heads down to find them. She sneaks along an underground sewer line, but and is caught and delivered to the employment center to explain herself. Sisko and Bashir meet with her in secret to explain why they must stay until the crisis is over. She sneaks back out, certain that Brynner will be able to order a terminal activated at the processing center so that the leaders of the revolt can tell their stories and have them broadcast worldwide, which was the main force that turned public opinion against the Sanctuary Districts and led to their abolition.

After several fruitless attempts to locate their fellow officers, Kira and O'Brien finally transport themselves to the correct year and contact Dax. They stand by to rescue Sisko and Bashir if they can. Having rejected the hostage-takers' demands, the governor sends in a SWAT team to end the riots once and for all. The team kills many rioters, and Sisko is shot while protecting one of the hostages. Bashir finds the wound to be non-fatal, and the two are horrified to see the bodies littering the streets of the Sanctuary District as the riots subside. The two police officers who first confronted Sisko and Bashir agree to plant the pair's identification cards on two of the victims, and also to tell the truth about these events. All five officers beam back to the ''Defiant'' in the 24th century and find that the timeline has been fully restored, except for the fact that Bell's entry in the historical records now shows Sisko's picture instead of his own.

The main plot of the show, as recounted in newspapers of the time, is Pastoria's attempts to regain the throne from the Wizard of Oz. The original protagonists' search for the Wizard puts them on the wrong side of the law.

Act One: The Storm

A young girl named Dorothy Gale lives on the great Kansas prairie with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and cow, Imogene. One day, while she is playing with her pet cow, Imogene, a fierce whirlwind appears. Dorothy and Imogene take shelter in the farmhouse, which is carried far away into the clouds.

Meanwhile, in the hamlet of Center Munch, the little Munchkins dance around their maypole, not noticing that Dorothy's house has fallen to Earth and killed the Wicked Witch of the East. Dorothy opens the front door and marvels at the strange Land of Oz. The Good Witch of the North awards her with a magic ring that grants her three wishes and can summon Glinda the Good Witch of the South at any time. The Good Witch then waves her wand and a pair of beautiful shoes appear on Dorothy's feet. She tells Dorothy that if she wants to get home, she must ask the Wizard of Oz to help her.

After a while everyone exits, and Dorothy is left alone with a Scarecrow hung on a pole. She wishes she had someone to talk to, and he comes to life. He gets down from the pole and complains that he has no brain. Dorothy suggests that he join her on the road to the Emerald City, and he sings "Alas for the Man Without Brains." They come upon the Tin Woodman, who has rusted playing his piccolo. As it turns out, his real name is Niccolo Chopper. He explains that the Wicked Witch of the West took his heart, so he cannot love his girlfriend, Cynthia. He joins them in the hope of receiving a heart from the Wizard, so that he can return to Cynthia.

Act Two: The Emerald City

The Keeper of the Gates patrols outside the Emerald City. Sir Wiley Gyle enters, a mad old inventor who has scorned magic since his mother died. He is sent to prison for murdering his wife. The travelers enter the Emerald City.

The Wizard gives the Scarecrow a brain and the Tin Woodman a heart. He declares this the greatest of all his achievements and calls for a celebration. The Ball of All Nations is thrown, in which up to twelve songs are sung by various characters. The Wizard performs a basket trick in which King Pastoria is the mark. In the middle of it Pastoria claims his right to the throne and overthrows the Wizard. A great commotion breaks out, with the Wizard escaping in a hot air balloon. Dorothy, still longing to get home, sets off with her companions to the castle of Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.

Act Three: Glinda's Palace

Dorothy and her friends arrive at Glinda's palace and are welcomed. There are great celebrations, with Glinda promising to send Dorothy home. The whole cast rushes out from the wings and sings the finale.

The story centers on the life of Mike Fallon, a high-class hitman. Fallon was known for making his murders look like accidents, often going to extravagant lengths to do so. Fallon is also noted for his love of high living and glamorous girlfriends. Mike Fallon's "I don't give a damn" attitude to his hits was changed the day his ex-girlfriend (a would-be Greenpeace activist) was murdered. Fallon then went on a murderous rampage to find out who paid the contract on his girlfriend and who actually made the hit.

The story begins in the Roman province of Judea with the portrayal of the Massacre of the Innocents in the Nativity. The remainder of the film portrays the annunciation and birth of Jesus Christ to explain why King Herod the Great (Ciarán Hinds) ordered the murder.

One year before the massacre, Zechariah (Stanley Townsend), a rabbi in Jerusalem, is making an offering, when he is told in a vision by the Archangel Gabriel (Alexander Siddig) that his wife, Elizabeth (Shohreh Aghdashloo), will bear a son. Zechariah does not believe him, stating that he is too old, and Gabriel tells him that he will be unable to speak until the boy is born. In Nazareth, 16 to 17-year-old Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is farming when soldiers come to collect taxes. One man, unable to pay, has a third of his land seized and his daughter pressed into debt slavery. Mary, betrothed to marry 32-year-old Joseph of Judaea (Oscar Isaac), is visited by Archangel Gabriel and told that she will become pregnant with God's son, whom she is to name "Jesus". He tells her that God has blessed her cousin Elizabeth with a child despite her old age. Mary visits her before the harvest, where she witnesses the birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth and Zechariah, who regains his speech. Mary returns from the visit pregnant, to the shock of Joseph and her parents, who fear that Joseph will accuse her of adultery, a sin punishable by death by stoning according to the Torah. At first Joseph does not believe Mary's religious explanation, but decides not to accuse her. Still shocked and angry, he is later visited in a dream by the Archangel Gabriel, who tells him of God's plan for Mary's son. Finally believing, he is ashamed of his earlier doubts.

Meanwhile, Roman emperor Caesar Augustus has demanded that every man across the Roman Empire return with his family to his place of birth for the census. A direct descendant of King David, Joseph is forced to travel across Judea's rocky terrain from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the place of his birth. With Mary on a donkey laden with supplies, it takes the couple nearly four weeks to reach Bethlehem. Upon arriving in town, Mary goes into labour, and Joseph frantically seeks a place for her to deliver. There is, however, no room in any inn or home because of the crowds arriving for the census, but at the last minute an innkeeper offers his stable for shelter.

Meanwhile, three Magi—Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar (Stefan Kalipha, Nadim Sawalha and Eriq Ebouaney) —travel towards Judaea after having previously discovered that three planets will align to form a great star. This Star of Bethlehem appears before the Magi, after a visit by the Archangel Gabriel. The Magi visit Herod and reveal to him that the Messiah is still a child and he will be a Messiah "for the lowest of men to the highest of kings." Shocked by this, Herod asks that they visit the newborn Messiah and report the child's location back to him, under the pretence that he, too, would like to worship him, while in fact he plans to kill the baby for fear of a new king taking his throne. The Magi arrive at the stable where Mary is giving birth to Jesus, and they present the Infant with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Suspicious of his intentions, the Magi avoid Herod, returning home via a different route. Herod realises that the Magi have tricked him and orders the death of every boy in Bethlehem under the age of two. Joseph is warned in a dream of the danger and flees to Egypt with Mary and Jesus as the film ends.

Nancy Drew is invited to Shadow Ranch in Arizona for a vacation. On the first day there, Nancy discovers that the owners of the ranch, Ed and Bet Rawley, are gone. The previous evening, a glowing horse came galloping up to the ranch, causing a huge commotion, and shortly after, Mr. Rawley was bitten by a venomous snake and rushed to the hospital.

Dirk Valentine, an outlaw from the 1880s, was romantically involved with the sheriff's daughter, Frances Humber, who lived at Shadow Ranch. Dirk was arrested and eventually hanged, but local legend says that Dirk's horse has come back to avenge its master and that misfortune will befall whoever sets eyes on it.

The plot of the video game is largely based on the film, albeit liberties are taken occasionally. King Neptune's crown has been stolen by Plankton, and SpongeBob and Patrick must retrieve it from Shell City and save Bikini Bottom.

Home console version

One day, SpongeBob wakes up and begins playing fetch with Gary, leading the snail to dig up a treasure chest. SpongeBob opens the chest and finds a bottle, which, upon rubbing it, releases doubloons all over Bikini Bottom and releases The Flying Dutchman. The Flying Dutchman tells SpongeBob that he will take Gary to work on his ship for all eternity for digging him up; after briefly leaving to check on his ship, he makes good on this promise.

SpongeBob proceeds to travel across seven different locations to recover letter tiles; there are nine in each, which spell out his name, and each set leads to a treasure. These treasures, as explained by one of Squidward's books on "How to Defeat Evil Spirits", are personal possessions from when the Dutchman was alive, which can apparently weaken him; according to the book, collecting all seven will make SpongeBob immune to the Dutchman's hypnotizing spell, allowing him to put up a fight to save Bikini Bottom.

To collect the tiles, SpongeBob must complete a wide assortment of challenges and missions for other characters, such as delivering food for Mr. Krabs in Downtown Bikini Bottom, fixing Patrick's TV antenna, helping Sandy rid her tree dome of bees and wasps after giving her a beehive (that he mistakes for an acorn) as a gift, bringing Patrick food, winning a jellyfishing contest, beating all the games at Plankton's new amusement park "Chum World", assisting Sandy with cleaning up garbage, curing Patrick's stomachache, chasing down Plankton, and defeating Larry the Lobster and Sandy in karate matches.

As SpongeBob continues in his quest and becomes increasingly impervious to the Dutchman's power, the Dutchman hypnotizes and kidnaps his other friends (apparently extremely satisfied with Gary's hard work, unlike his old crew) and terrorizes Bikini Bottom. This culminates with attempting to murder SpongeBob by dropping heavy crates and barrels into his house, forcing him to flee. He winds up in the Dutchman's graveyard, where he assists the Dutchman's disgruntled pirates get their fair share of "booty" (i.e. doubloons) in exchange for the use of their cannons and collects the seventh and final treasure.

Believing himself to now be immune to the Dutchman, SpongeBob boards the Dutchman's ship and rescues his friends, but is confronted by the Dutchman. His cockiness is crushed by the omniscient narrator, who informs him that Squidward's book was out-of-date and that the new edition explains he is ''mostly'' immune to the Dutchman's magic, but not completely. He proceeds to fight the Dutchman anyway, and his victory is cemented by sucking the Dutchman back into his bottle. Afterward, as the Dutchman's ship catches fire, SpongeBob escapes with his friends on a flying boat to celebrate at the Krusty Krab.

Game Boy Advance version

SpongeBob SquarePants is giving Gary a walk through Jellyfish Fields, Gary then smells Kelp Nip and runs off. After SpongeBob finds Gary, he finds a chest, opens it and finds a bottle. SpongeBob then opens the bottle and the Flying Dutchman appears. After SpongeBob mistakes the Dutchman for a genie that will grant him a wish, he tells SpongeBob to find his ten treasures and doubloons that got scattered around Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob does so, but the Dutchman ultimately abducts Gary, Patrick, Sandy, Mr. Krabs, and Squidward. After SpongeBob finds all of his friends on the Dutchman's ship, he battles the Dutchman himself. After the Dutchman is defeated, the player is given a list of wishes to choose from, each one depicting a screenshot of said wish. One of them involves giving SpongeBob his own TV show, when that one is chosen, a screenshot of the show's original logo appears.

It is Patrick's birthday, and SpongeBob wants to give him "the best present ever": a photo signed by his favorite superheroes, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. However, the heroes want nothing more than to get rid of SpongeBob, so they keep sending him to accomplish random tasks around Bikini Bottom. After returning from one such task, SpongeBob discovers that the television in Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy's retirement home is broken, so he searches Bikini Bottom for repair tools. After finding the tools, SpongeBob returns to fix the television. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, feeling grateful, finally give SpongeBob the autographs. The game ends with Patrick thanking SpongeBob for the autographs, and everyone wishing him a happy birthday.

Dhracian hunter Rath arrives by sea, searching for the F'dor demons and also for Ysk, now known as Achmed the Snake, the Assassin King of Ylorc. At the same time dragons gather in a primeval forest glade to mourn the death of the dragon Llauron, who died protecting his daughter-in-law Rhapsody and her newborn son, Meridion, which happened at the end of the previous book of the series, ''Elegy for a Lost Star''. His death also means the loss of the lore and control over the Earth itself that it represents. The dragons are terrified for what will come as a result of this loss.

In Navarne, Lord and Lady Cymrian hold a secret meeting attended by King Achmed, his sergeant Grunthor, Lord Marshal Anborn, young Duke Gwydion Navarne and Constantin, the Patriarch of Sepulvarta. It becomes clear that Talquist, the new ruler of Sorbold, is making preparations for a war against his neighbours.

Ashe sends his wife and baby Meridion to safety to Ylorc with Achmed and Grunthor and calls a meeting of Cymrian nobles. Meanwhile Anborn and Constantin travel with an army to the Holy City of Sepulvarta, which has been attacked by sorboldian troops. Achmed meets Rath, who tells him of his destiny to hunt the F'dor demons, yet declines Rath's request to join him - as a Firbolg King and protector of the Earth Child he has other priorities.

Kanade Otsuka is a high school girl who sometimes sees the future when she touches someone or something. Though she is uncomfortable being touched, she refuses to live her life in fear and uses her powers to help those she sees in trouble. One day, she meets Arou Naitou, a school mate who can see the past but does not feel he can do anything with his knowledge. They also meets Namiki Masahiro, another student who can also see the future but has more control over his power than Kanade and uses it purely for selfish reasons.

Kanade, Arou, and Namiki must in a world where society might not accept them if their secret is ever known other than by their friends. On several occasions, people learn about their secret (the school doctor, people from Arou's middle school, family members), with varying results. For example, Arou's classmates from middle school react negatively, distressing him, while another classmate tries to use Arou's talent for the benefit of society.

In an underground poker game, a man is revealed to be cheating with a hole card when the game gets robbed. He manages to defend himself and everyone but him and one robber is killed.

Hustlers Tiffany (Thandiwe Newton) and Charlie Miller (Gabriel Byrne) meet up with Larry Jennings (Jamie Foxx) as he's winning a poker game. They agree to a partnership to work a game with a potential profit of $20,000. Larry meets their third, Vernon (Stuart Townsend), a card mechanic who is working as a blackjack dealer. In a flashback, Vernon switches out the contents of a six deck shoe and they take the casino for $40,000. As Vernon and Charlie wait for Larry, corrupt cop Scarne (Bo Hopkins) shakes them down. Larry arrives and, after seeing Vernon's skills agrees to team with them - Larry will bet high on Vernon's crooked deals.

At the game, Larry gets impatient with the slow action and, on his own deal, gets over $100,000 in the pot. He loses; the money he bet belongs to a mobster named Malini (Patrick Bauchau), who sends his enforcers Marlo (Roger Guenveur Smith) and Nate (B-Real) to retrieve him. They take him to the house, which has been stripped bare - everyone at the game was in on the con. They take Larry to an airport and kill him.

The man and the robber (from the first scene) agree to cut cards for the money. The robber cuts a King and the man cuts the Ace of spades. They reach for their guns; the man gets his first and kills the robber, whose blood splatters on the ace. The three speculate that the story is an urban legend about "The Dean." They talk about taking the Dean (Sylvester Stallone) down at a game with a $250,000 buy-in and total stakes of at least $2,000,000. After Vernon's departure, it's revealed that he and Tiffany had been lovers until Vernon left and Tiffany slept with Charlie.

The next day, Malini's enforcers track down Charlie to a restaurant and Marlo demands the return of Malini's money. Charlie agrees to pay back $100,000, but Nate pulls a gun and a gunfight ensues. Tiffany arrives in time to kill Nate, but Marlo escapes. Charlie, Vernon and Tiffany escape and hide out with The Professor (Hal Holbrook), Vernon's former mentor, who is suspicious of Charlie and insists Vernon is better than him. Scarne arrives at the murder scene and realizes that the three are involved from a description by the witnesses.

The three arrive at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for the game, where they discover that the host is Malini. Vernon and the Dean bust the other players and agree to play five card stud. Dean's former lover Eve (Melanie Griffith) arrives, and they take a break. The three talk about the trouble Vernon is having and Tiffany speculates the cards are marked. Vernon discovers the Dean is using a "juice deck," a deck marked to be readable when one's eyes are unfocused.

In the final hand, Vernon mucks a card and deals the hand. He deals the Dean two pair, Kings and Queens, and himself a pair of Jacks with a 7 in the hole for the Dean to see. The Dean goes all in, and when Vernon is $50,000 short, Charlie and Tiffany make up the shortfall so he can call the bet. Before the cards are turned up, Marlo enters the room. Identifying the three as the team who conned Larry, Malini's muscle pull their guns and Tiffany pulls hers, then Scarne enters with his gun drawn. The Dean insists that the hand be completed and Vernon swaps out his hole 7 for a third Jack, which would beat the two pair he'd dealt the Dean. The room is stunned when the Dean turns up a third Queen to take the hand. Malini tells the three they can leave but advises them to stay out of the Los Angeles rackets.

Charlie splits up the partnership with Vernon and, after Marlo's revelation that he was tipped off by Tiffany about shaking down Larry, with her as well. As Vernon sits alone in a diner, The Dean, Eve and Scarne enter, revealing the game was all an elaborate setup by the four of them to con Charlie and Tiffany. They split the take, but as he leaves the Dean pauses to flip the blood-stained Ace of spades to Vernon.

Angélique (Audrey Tautou), a successful art student, purchases a single pink rose at a flower shop to be delivered to her lover, Dr. Loïc Le Garrec (Samuel Le Bihan). In between creating her art projects, Angélique works part-time at a cafe and house-sits for a wealthy vacationing family. Her friend David (Clément Sibony) disapproves of her affair with Loïc, who is married, but she insists that Loïc will leave his wife for her.

When Loïc's wife, Rachel (Isabelle Carré), has a miscarriage, the pair separate and Angélique prepares to leave with Loïc on a romantic getaway to Florence. However, Loïc does not meet Angélique at the airport, having chosen to mend things with his wife. This throws Angélique into a self-destructive cycle of clinical depression, losing her job and scholarship. While watching the news one night, she learns that Loïc has been arrested for assaulting one of his patients, Sonia Jasmin (Nathalie Krebs). She goes to Sonia's house to convince her to drop the charges and, in the ensuing scuffle, Sonia has a heart attack and dies. Thinking this will win Loïc back, Angélique steals from the house to make it look like a robbery. Instead, Loïc is arrested for Sonia's murder. Angélique, after witnessing Loïc embrace his wife as he is dragged away, returns home, turns on the gas oven, and lies down on the floor to commit suicide.

At this point the film rewinds to the opening scene when Angélique bought the pink rose. This time the film follows the delivery boy and the subsequent events play out from Loïc's viewpoint.

Loïc receives the pink rose and assumes that his wife sent it to him. It is revealed that Loïc barely knows Angélique and that they cross paths only because Angélique is house-sitting for Loïc and Rachel's neighbor. Loïc receives Angélique's gifts and messages but does not know who sent them. It is revealed that Rachel's miscarriage was caused by "someone" running her down with a moped; earlier in the film, Angélique is shown having suffered an "accident" that ruined her friend's moped and injured her arm. Loïc comes to believe that his stalker is Sonia; he physically attacks her and she presses charges for assault. After she dies of a heart attack, Loïc is arrested as the prime suspect for her murder. After his arrest, Rachel tells the police that he was with her on the night of the death, which clears him of all charges.

That night, Loïc sees an ambulance pull up to his neighbor's house after Angélique tries to kill herself. As a doctor, he performs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which causes her to regain consciousness. Now aware of her, he considers the possibility that she is his stalker. Exploring the house that she was house-sitting, he finds a life-sized garbage mosaic of himself. Loïc and Angélique have a final confrontation, in which he declares that they never had, nor ever will have, a relationship. Angélique strikes him over the head with a brass figurine and he falls down the stairs. Angélique is arrested, diagnosed with erotomania, and remanded to a mental institution. Rachel stands by her husband while he recovers from his injuries, and several years later the couple are shown at a house with their young children as Loïc hobbles around with a walker.

Five years after the attack, Angélique is released from the mental institution. Her therapist praises her progress and tells her, "If you keep taking your medication, you will be fine". However, when the cleaning man is clearing Angélique's room, he discovers her pills have been glued to the wall behind the wardrobe in a mosaic of Loïc, thus showing that Angélique has never taken her medication, and is still obsessed with Loïc. The film then ends with a quotation from a real erotomaniac: "Though my love is insane, my reason relieves the pain of the heart, telling me to be patient and not lose hope."

Mitchell and his mate drop their swags, and sit down in the mulga shade on the edge of a plain. Mitchell reflects about the last time he saw his family, after having been away for eight years. While he speaks, he holds a young cattle-pup, and occasionally intercuts his tale with observations about the pup's feet, or a request for a knife. With his story complete, Mitchell and his mate take up their swags, "[turn] their unshaven faces to the wide, hazy distance, and [leave] the timber behind them."

Having learned from security chief Odo that a Changeling has taken Gowron's form and is now in control of the Klingon Empire, Captain Benjamin Sisko is ordered by Starfleet Command to expose the impostor. He, Odo, Miles O'Brien, and Worf must infiltrate Ty'Gokor, the headquarters of the Klingon military, disguised as Klingon candidates for the "Order of the Bat'leth". They are given four devices which, when activated, will emit radiation which will force any nearby Changeling to revert to its gelatinous state. Gul Dukat escorts them to Ty'Gokor in his captured Klingon Bird of Prey.

The four arrive at the Hall of Warriors, where the all-night party before the induction ceremony has already begun, and try to blend in. When General Martok, second in command to Gowron, arrives, the four scramble to set up their radiation emitters. Gowron arrives and begins issuing the awards. When Sisko is called to receive his award, he attempts to activate the emitters, but is knocked to the floor by Martok, who has finally recognized them and has them thrown in a security cell.

Once they are alone, Martok confides to Sisko that he too believes that Gowron is an impostor. With the emitters destroyed, the only way to expose Gowron is to kill him. Martok releases Sisko and his group and leads them back to the Hall of Warriors. Worf challenges Gowron to a one-on-one duel. Martok wonders why Sisko does not shoot Gowron outright. Odo observes that Gowron chose to fight Worf in single combat, thus showing Klingon honor, while Changelings do not care for honor; he concludes that the Changeling is not Gowron, but Martok. Just when Worf is about to kill Gowron, Odo reveals the false Martok to the crowd, and the Klingons open fire, quickly destroying the Changeling.

Gowron realizes that Odo was fed false intelligence that Gowron was the Changeling, which would have led to Gowron's assassination by the Federation, allowing the fake Martok, and therefore the Dominion, to gain full control of the Klingon Empire. Gowron agrees to a ceasefire in the war between the Klingons and the Federation, and Sisko and his men are returned safely back to DS9.

The movie takes the point-of-view of Jay (David Grant), a college student whose main interests are theater and computer games. While Jay moves around his school's well-equipped theater building he delivers a long voice-over soliloquy revealing his quirky personality. Jay has difficulty interpreting other people: he mentions that his classmates often try to trick him into believing absurd statements, and he cannot always tell whether girls are just being polite to him or if they especially like him. Jay's voice-over is intercut with scenes of the production that is being performed in the theater, a fashion show version of ''Hamlet''.

Jay leaves the theater and encounters one of his professors, Dr. Max Boaz (John Kessel). As Jay and Max are walking outdoors a sniper opens fire from a rooftop and kills all the people around Jay. His roommate Walt (Stephen Grant) yells from the rooftop, asking Jay to come up and join him. Jay assumes Walt must be up there trying to assist wounded people or stop the sniper. Eager to help, Jay enters the building and tries to get to the roof, experiencing several bizarre encounters with other people along the way.

After Jay arrives on the roof he learns that Walt is actually the sniper. Between outbursts of shooting, Walt says he comes from a long line of sharpshooters and has been working on a book about his family entitled ''The Delicate Art of the Rifle.''

Walt also tells Jay about incidents in which Walt tried to locate his girlfriend. She had disappeared and her friends and relatives did not remember her. Walt has come to the conclusion that there is some sort of "metaphysical virus" that erases people from history, removing all traces of them. Walt believes that he also has the virus and will soon disappear.

The movie ends with a long steadicam scene that follows Jay as he walks through the theater building closing doors and turning off lights. In his voice-over monologue Jay reveals that Walt vanished and was never found. Jay says he has lost all his newspaper clippings of the sniper incident. At the very end Jay's voice-over intimates that Walt "erasing virus" theory might have been correct, but with Jay as a classic unreliable narrator this is never definitively established.

Ramona is in Glenwood School and all is going well until one day her father comes home and announces he has lost his job. The Quimbys must now cope with the breadwinner searching for another job, filling out job applications and collecting unemployment insurance. Mrs. Quimby goes to work full-time, but things are still very tight for the family. Mr. Quimby sinks into depression and Mrs. Quimby tells the children that they must not do anything that would further upset their dad.

Ramona wants to help, so she crosses almost everything off her wish list for Christmas. Then she adds one more item – a happy family. But will her wish come true? The Quimbys are also dealing with the family's temperamental car, Beezus' problems with her creative writing class, and Ramona's efforts to get her father to stop smoking. One day when Ramona worries about the family, Mr. Quimby reassures her the Quimbys will always be together and strong, no matter what happens.

That Christmas Beezus and Ramona participate in their church's Christmas pageant. Beezus is to be the Virgin Mary and Ramona decides that she and her friends Howie and Davy should be sheep. Unfortunately, her Mother doesn't have time to sew a costume so Ramona has to wear a pair of old pajamas, which she hates. In the end, the sheep steal the show and Ramona and her family share a wonderful night together.

"People should not think being seven and a half years old was easy, because it wasn't." At last, Ramona's father, Robert, has a job again, so the Quimbys host a brunch to celebrate. Ramona is burdened with the task of keeping her friend Howie Kemp's little sister, Willa Jean, out of everybody's way. Not wanting Willa Jean to touch any of her toys, Ramona gives Willa Jean a pop-up box of tissues to play with. When Willa Jean strews tissues through the house, the guests decide to take their leave. When someone remarks that Ramona was just like Willa Jean when she was younger, Ramona feels hurt and upset, not believing that she was ever such an exasperating spoiled pest. When Dorothy states that she could not get along without Beezus, Ramona feels isolated and unappreciated by her family.

Now that both Dorothy and Robert are working full-time, everyone must pitch in to keep the house running as smoothly as possible. One day, the family comes home to find that, in the rush to leave the house in the morning, the Crock-pot was not plugged in, forcing the family to improvise dinner from the sparse ingredients on hand. The preparation of said dinner causes an argument between Robert and Dorothy, which frightens the girls, who had never before seen such behavior from their parents. Suddenly worried that their parents might get a divorce like some of their respective classmates' parents have recently, Beezus and Ramona comfort each other that night at bedtime, and Beezus tells Ramona that she will always be there to look after her. The next morning, Beezus and Ramona are surprised to find their parents sitting at breakfast together, acting as if the argument never happened. Robert and Dorothy explain that marital spats are a part of life and do not necessarily foreshadow a divorce. When it is further indicated that Beezus and Ramona fight, Ramona feels that the comparison is unfair, and orders her parents to never fight again.

Tempers flare again when Beezus refuses to let Dorothy cut Beezus' hair. Dorothy normally cuts the girls' hair, but Beezus reveals that she has saved her allowance to get her hair cut at a local hairdressing academy. The battle of wills between Beezus and Dorothy makes Ramona happy, since she is still envious of their relationship. When the appointment goes wrong and Ramona ends up with a cute pixie haircut and Beezus gets a bad perm and ends up with "forty-year-old" hair, Ramona suddenly feels bad for Beezus and decides it is nicer when everyone in the family is happy.

Matters become complicated once more when Dorothy buys Ramona a new pair of pajamas, the first time Ramona has not received Beezus' hand-me-downs. Ramona loves her new pajamas so much that she wears them to school underneath her clothes. She finally admits this fact to her teacher, Mrs. Rudge, who promises Ramona that she will not reveal Ramona's secret to anybody. When Ramona overhears Dorothy's end of a phone conversation with Mrs. Rudge that night, however, she mistakenly assumes that Mrs. Rudge has betrayed her confidence. She becomes angry, argues with her parents, and decides to run away from home. Dorothy, to Ramona's shock, offers to help her pack a suitcase. Dorothy purposefully packs the suitcase so that it is too heavy for Ramona to carry, which turns out to be a ploy to get Ramona to stay. When Ramona realizes that she had been tricked, Dorothy says the words that Ramona had longed to hear since the day of the brunch and Willa Jean's tissue incident: "I couldn't get along without my Ramona."

Third-grader Ellen Tebbits lives with her parents on Tillamook Street in Portland, Oregon. The book opens when Ellen heads to her dance class at the studio run by the mother of a classmate, Otis Spofford, who is always teasing her. When she arrives, she heads to change in a broom closet so the other girls cannot see her terrible secret: Ellen is wearing woolen underwear. After class, she accidentally walks in on a new girl in class, Austine Allen, who's also wearing the dreaded underwear. Soon, the two become best friends. Other chapters in the book deal with Ellen's first-ever time going horseback riding, her efforts to bring a giant beet to school for show-and-tell, and Ellen and Austine's efforts to put up with the obnoxious Otis' antics.

During summer vacation, Ellen and Austine decide to dress as twins on their first day back to school. The plan is for their mothers to make identical dresses for them. Austine's mother, however, cannot sew, so her dress doesn't turn out well. As the day goes on Austine begins to amuse herself by tugging on the sash of Ellen's dress. Ellen gets irritated and finally slaps Austine in the lunch line when her sash comes undone. Unfortunately, Austine was innocent; Otis had pulled on her dress. Austine begins spending time with other girls and ignores Ellen, who thinks everyone looks down on her for slapping her best friend.

In the final chapter, the teacher chooses Ellen and Austine to go outside and clean the chalkboard erasers. Austine continues to ignore Ellen, who becomes so angered by this that she yanks on the sash on Austine's dress and rips it. Both girls end up in tears and, after learning that Otis was the culprit in the lunch line and that both of their mothers made them wear their dreaded woolen underwear that day, they mend their friendship.

''Voyager'' Emergency Medical Holographic Program (EMH), "the Doctor" (Robert Picardo), is activated due to a red alert. Despite the computer's (Majel Barrett) assertion that nobody is aboard, B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) soon arrives in sickbay. She informs the Doctor that the ship was attacked by Kazon and that all except herself and Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) have abandoned ship. After treating her injuries, Torres transfers the Doctor's program to the bridge using newly installed holographic emitters there. The Doctor treats the captain and assists Neelix (Ethan Phillips) to defeat a stray Kazon in the mess hall, but then notices he is bleeding and feeling pain, neither of which is a function of his program. In sickbay, making inquiries with the computer, the Doctor is told that there are no holographic programs matching his own and that he is actually Lewis Zimmerman (Picardo), whom the Doctor recognizes as his programmer.

With the computer insisting that the crew of ''Voyager'' is only a collection of holographic programs, a new hologram appears in sickbay and claims to be Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz), Doctor Zimmerman's assistant at the Jupiter Station Holoprogramming Center. Barclay explains that the Doctor is really Lewis Zimmerman and that the ''Voyager'' is actually a simulation in which he has been trapped and which is inflicting radiation poisoning. To end the program and rescue Zimmerman, Barclay suggests destroying the ship before he suffers irreparable brain damage. To convince the Doctor that he is Zimmerman in a simulation, Barclay restarts the ''Voyager'' program, and the Doctor finds himself reliving the events of "Caretaker" when he was first brought online.

Convinced of Barclay's claims, the Doctor prepares to destroy the ship, when Chakotay (Robert Beltran) arrives and gives an alternative story: the Doctor is indeed the ''Voyager'' EMH, but his program is stuck in the malfunctioning holodeck. The crew is trying to extricate his program and he only needs to wait; if he destroys the ship as Barclay suggests, it will prematurely end the program and the Doctor will be lost. Even though Barclay introduces Kes (Jennifer Lien) as Zimmerman's wife, the Doctor finally opts to believe in his holographic existence. The simulation ends and the Doctor finds himself on the holodeck; Chakotay's story was true and the Doctor is safely returned to sickbay.

The Doctor (Robert Picardo) asks Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to alter his program to allow him to captain the ship if an emergency occurs. Janeway refuses the request. Despite this, the Doctor alters his own sub-routines, allowing him to daydream, while ''Voyager'' is traveling through an apparently harmless nebula. Among other ego-fulfilling fantasies, the daydreams include one where he becomes the "Emergency Command Hologram" and defeats an attacking alien vessel using a fictional deadly photonic cannon. The Doctor finds that his daydreams are occurring when he doesn't want them to, a side effect of his faulty programming, and the crew disables the new routines.

Meanwhile, undetected by ''Voyager'', the crew of an observation ship of the Hierarchy species has been monitoring ''Voyager'' s passage. As they have done with other ships that pass through the nebula, the Hierarchy determines whether there is any value on the ships, and if so, attacks them. They are unable to scan ''Voyager'' via normal means, and instead use a microscopic tunneling scan. This latches onto the Doctor's program, allowing them to witness events experienced by the hologram, though they are unaware of where reality stops and the Doctor's fantasies begin. Though the Hierarchy's crewman Phlox (Jay Leggett) soon realizes their mistake, the Hierarchy has already issued the command to attack ''Voyager'' for their anti-matter reserves.

Phlox uses the tunneling scan to reactivate the Doctor's daydreaming programs to allow him to communicate with the hologram. Phlox explains the situation to the Doctor, who in turn reports this to Janeway. As ''Voyager'' s crew becomes aware of the approaching Hierarchy ships, Janeway arranges for the deception to be complete, temporarily turning the Doctor into the Emergency Command Hologram. The Doctor, less confident in reality than his daydreams, is still able to bluff regarding use of the photonic cannon and the Hierarchy quickly retreats. Janeway commends the Doctor for his performance and arranges a team to evaluate the prospects of putting the hologram in charge of the ship under emergency situations.

On stardate 48921.3, encounters a cloud of space-dwelling lifeforms, and Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) takes the ship in for a closer look. The ship is soon drawn in and engulfed by the swarm of creatures, whose proximity disables the helm controls and shields. The crew endeavor to escape without harming the swarm, but when the creatures begin attaching themselves to the hull, they wreak even more havoc on the ship’s systems. A version of the creatures as large as ''Voyager'' arrives, and the crew realize that they have been mistaken for another of the species; the smaller creatures are attempting to mate with the ship. When the larger creature attacks, ''Voyager'' adopts a position of submission, based on behavior the crew observed in the smaller members of the species. Losing interest, the smaller creatures detach from ''Voyager'' and allow it to leave.

In response to ''Voyager'' s exposure to the swarm, Kes (Jennifer Lien) begins eating abnormally, including insects and soil. In sickbay, she has a fever, a dangerously elevated pulse and blood pressure, and a tumorous growth on her back. She resists the Doctor’s (Robert Picardo) treatment and locks herself in his office, finally relenting only to explain to Captain Janeway that she's undergoing the ''elogium'': the Ocampa mating cycle. This process only happens once and usually affects Ocampa between four and five years old—but Kes is not even two. Neelix (Ethan Phillips) and Kes agonize over whether to have children and the ramifications of becoming parents. After discussing children and family with Lieutenant Tuvok (Tim Russ), Neelix decides he's ready to be a father, while Kes has instead decided against it. Ultimately, because the Doctor believes the ''elogium'' was artificially induced by the creatures' proximity to the ship, it may come upon her again later in her life when she is ready.

Throughout the episode, concerns arise over shipboard fraternization. After Captain Janeway and Chakotay (Robert Beltran) discuss whether the ship is an appropriate place to raise children, Ensign Samantha Wildman (Nancy Hower) announces that she is pregnant by her husband, who is still in the Alpha Quadrant.

One day, when Kermit attempts to gain another unnecessary thing, he is almost buried by a dog, but is saved by a poor boy. Kermit is grateful and wants to thank the boy, but cannot think of a way to do so until he finds a chest of gold. As he stores the gold pieces in his cave, he slowly gives up one thing at a time, until he has all the gold and no more possessions in his cave. With the help of the pelican, Kermit drops coins down the boy's chimney. The boy's family becomes rich and Kermit learns the value of sharing.

During construction at the old, hard-pressed Lakewood Hotel, two workers stumble upon a swarm of ants in a closed section of the building. After discovering the ants to be unusually aggressive and dangerous, the workers attempt to get the warning out, but are accidentally buried alive.

Shortly after, the unscrupulous real estate magnate Anthony Fleming (Gerald Gordon) and his partner and mistress Gloria (Suzanne Somers) arrive at the hotel, there to haggle with the elderly proprietor, Ethel Adams (Myrna Loy) and her daughter Valerie (Lynda Day George) as they pursue plans to convert Lakewood into a casino. In the meantime, foreman Mike Carr (Robert Foxworth), who is in a relationship with Valerie, and his co-worker and friend Vince (Bernie Casey) find the two missing workers, dead from poisoning. The ants begin to emerge, attacking a boy, then killing a hotel cook, and nearly killing Vince as he and Mike investigate the pit in which their men were buried.

Peggy Kenter (Anita Gillette), a Board of Health (BOH) inspector and an acquaintance of Carr's, decides to quarantine the hotel, thinking a virus is at work. Mike soon discovers that there is an immense ant nest in the pit, and concludes that these insects are responsible for the attacks. Tom (Bruce French), a BOH researcher, finally discovers that the ants are highly venomous and resistant to insecticides.

By that time, the ants are swarming the hotel by the millions, killing Gloria and Peggy's assistant White (Steve Franken) and driving Carr, Valerie, Ethel, Fleming, hotel employee Richard (Barry Van Dyke) and his girlfriend Linda (Karen Lamm) upstairs. Vince alerts the authorities, who attempt to contain the ants with a trench - filled first with water, then with burning gasoline after Tom points out that army ants cross streams on bridges built from ant corpses - and rescue most of the people trapped inside the hotel. Carr, Valerie and Fleming, the only people remaining, are eventually cornered by the ants; Tom tells them not to move, in order to give the ants no reason to attack them. As the ants begin crawling all over them, Fleming panickedly launches himself from the room's balcony to the swimming pool below in a desperate attempt to escape, but misses the jump and dies in the fall. Shortly afterwards, two suited-up rescuers arrive and take Carr and Valerie to safety.

When they are taken away by the ambulance, Tom assures Carr that such a case will not likely be recurring, as the unique environmental conditions at the hotel estate were vital for the existence of the ants' nest.

In the near future, human society has been destroyed by the Gods (beings with superpowers closely resembling those of archetypical comic book superheroes) who came to our planet offering help but instead, seeing that we could not look after ourselves, demanded that we accept them as our leaders. Stubbornly, humanity fought back and were defeated by the Gods and their incredible powers, leaving few survivors. The surviving humans are now fighting a seemingly fruitless guerilla war against the Gods. One such group of survivors, The Ten Seconders, have encountered a man known only as The Scientist who promises to help humanity defeat the Gods, but seems mysteriously linked to the God's existence. Now Jenny, one of The Ten Seconders' own people, is being turned into a God by The Scientist in exchange for a way to defeat the Gods...

After stealing a high-end palmtop PC from an anonymous businessman on a coach, hitch-hiker Verity Carlo is picked up by an intense man, Hunter O'Nion, who reveals he's an alien conspiracy theorist tracking down reports of giant machines in the area. They soon come across the coach Verity departed, which had been run off the road by a pair of sports cars - the businessman whose palmtop Verity stole is missing.

The pair continue on, but are attacked by a blue fighter jet. Hunter's van is destroyed, but he and Verity are saved - by the smiling driver of a suspiciously well-armed ambulance...

As their mysterious rescuer attempts to evade the pursuing fighter jet, Verity and Hunter start to realize that not only are they being attacked by one of the disguised mechanoids Hunter has sought—but that the ambulance they're sitting in is also one of them. Suddenly, two sports cars, one white, one black, join the jet in pursuit of the ambulance. Deploying sophisticated gadgetry, the ambulance driver manages to lose their pursuers for a while, and Verity finds the fugitives a place to hide—the automotive workshop of Jimmy Pink.

Verity reveals that she and Jimmy are both net-hikers, members of a community of drifters who use the Internet to maintain their mutual-assistance network. Hunter realizes that not only is Verity's palmtop stolen, but that it's the very item that the jet and sports cars are trying to recover. He confronts the ambulance driver with a picture stored on the palmtop, but Verity, sick of conspiracy paranoia, takes it back from them and walks outside.

Within a second, she's back inside, babbling frantically about Decepticons—and the garage door is ripped from its mount, revealing two giant robots, one black, one white, demanding the palmtop.

Confronted by two menacing robots, the stunned Verity, Hunter and Jimmy can only stand and gawp as the ambulance driver disappears in a blaze of electricity, stunning one of the robots - and as it falls into a garage wall, sending concrete everywhere, the ambulance itself transforms into a third giant robot, shielding the three humans from the rubble. As the robot who was a white sports car draws a weapon, the third robot deploys an ink spray, blinding his attacker, then folds itself back down, becoming an ambulance once again, and orders the three humans inside it.

Back in the wilds of Arizona, a police detachment finds the dead body of the anonymous businessman. None of them can identify him - at least, not but one, who secretly calls group of people in a boardroom whose only distinguishing feature is a massive "M".

The ambulance is once again picked up by the blue jet fighter and narrowly avoids a pile-up caused by the jet's sonic boom. This allows the two sports cars - who identify themselves as Runamuck and Runabout - to catch up, partially transforming to deploy weapons. According to the ambulance, this is a very disturbing sign, as Decepticons never break cover, let alone in such a brazen fashion. Some more fancy driving allows the ambulance to shake Runamuck and Runabout, but Verity, whom on top of fleeing for her life has had reality turned upside down on her, gets out of the ambulance and flees.

While Jimmy goes to calm her down, Hunter tries to pry more detail out of the ambulance - starting with its name, Ratchet - but before he can get far, the jet re-acquires them. With everyone back inside, Ratchet goes on the run again, but three more cars with weapons that spring from hidden compartments appear and shoot the plane down. These cars then transform and draw weapons on Ratchet, and the leader - Prowl - informs Ratchet of the statutes of the Autobot Code of Interplanetary Conflict that he has violated. In his defense, Ratchet offers only two words: Siege Mode.

Aboard the Autobot starship Ark-17, located at the bottom of Lake Michigan, Prowl gives Ratchet a thorough dressing-down for disobeying his orders and breaking cover, then tells him to find out just what's on Verity's stolen palmtop and get rid of the humans, refusing Ratchet's suggestion that Prowl alert Optimus Prime. Ratchet appears to Verity, Hunter and Jimmy in their containment cell and persuades Verity to hand the palmtop over. He shows them the mysterious businessman's photos and explains they show a Decepticon command bunker, mysteriously abandoned (which Decepticons never do) and apparently in Siege Mode much too early than standard Decepticon procedure.

In the meantime, a police officer is investigating the dead body found on an Arizona reservation, tracking him to a caravan park - just as a pair of war-planes, one black, one purple, appear out of thin air and destroy the dead man's caravan, promptly disappearing again. Later, an Abrams battle tank destroys the remains of Jimmy Pink's garage, then transforms into the purple plane and along with the black one disappears yet again. Finally, the coach which Verity and the dead man traveled on is destroyed.

Verity, Hunter and Jimmy insist that Ratchet take them to the Decepticon bunker in Nebraska so that they can locate the proof Ratchet needs to persuade Prowl of the severity of the Decepticon situation. Partway swayed, Ratchet makes his mind up when Bumblebee offers to help out. The three humans and two Autobots make their way to Nebraska - just as the Decepticon lieutenant Starscream orders Skywarp and Blitzwing to destroy the bunker.

Verity, Hunter and Jimmy explore the abandoned Decepticon base. In the process, Verity discovers a months-old human corpse and almost has a nervous breakdown. Topside, Skywarp and Blitzwing try to destroy the bunker, forcing Ratchet and Bumblebee into battle. Bumblebee is able to shoot down Skywarp, his processor speed outmatching Skywarp's, but Ratchet is taken out by Blitzwing.

Meanwhile, the Machination prepares to "appropriate" Cybertronian technology, having discovered the location of Ark-19 via the SM-40's homing signal.

Back underground, Verity discovers someone else has entered the bunker - Megatron.

Skywarp and Blitzwing begin to level the Nebraska bunker. Jimmy and Hunter escape, but Verity is still below, paralyzed by fear at the sight of Megatron - who ignores her as irrelevant. As the bunker collapses in on itself, the Autobots and humans risk themselves to pull Verity to safety.

Meanwhile, Starscream and Astrotrain refine the Ore-13 yield at the Oregon base, as Starscream plans to ingest the extracted Energon.

Blitzwing and Skywarp survey the new crater, with Blitzwing believing the base and what they did there made them stop being Decepticons and it "deserves to be buried". At which point an enraged Megatron smashes his way out and destroys Skywarp with one shot. Blitzwing engages him and is smashed to pieces. The Autobots flee back to Ark-17, knowing Megatron is out of their league.

The Autobots report the data they gained to Prowl - Starscream's cell found a new variant of Energon they could directly apply to their systems. Quickly exhausted the seam, abandoning the bunker for another in Oregon (which possessed a richer seam) and engaged Siege Mode to protect what they had. Megatron is here to "put his house in order", and nobody can tell how powerful Starscream may have become.

Starscream charges himself up to immense levels with Ore-13 Energon, intending to defeat Megatron. While the other Decepticons drop their guns and cease their mutiny upon Megatron simply talking, Starscream unleashes his full, devastating power. However, even Starscream's increased strength isn't enough to defeat Megatron and Megatron beats Starscream half to death.

With Megatron now in command of the Earth cell and ordering Phase Two, Prowl realizes they need to call in Optimus Prime. Luckily, he's already arrived.

Unluckily, the Machination have tracked the Autobots to their base.

The game takes place in a fictional prehistoric era. Its protagonist is Bonk, a strong and bald caveboy who battles anthropomorphic dinosaurs and other prehistoric enemies. Bonk's mission is to rescue Princess Za (a small pink Plesiosaur-type reptile) who has been kidnapped by the evil King Drool (a large, green, Tyrannosaurus-type dinosaur). In the arcade version, Bonk is also assisted by a female version of himself.

In 1901, the United States is still basking in its victory in the Spanish–American War only three years earlier. However, the US Army is small, and its only large forces occupying the newly-won possessions of the Philippines and Cuba.

German Kaiser Wilhelm II, tries to purchase the US acquisitions to compete with the British Empire. After it is refused, Germany declares war on the US and begins to invade it.

The Germans land troops on the southern shore of Long Island, New York. They soon take Brooklyn, and Manhattan quickly falls, which soon allows German forces to cross into Connecticut.

US President William McKinley is overwhelmed, suffers a heart attack, and dies, which results in US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becoming the new president. Roosevelt begins to retrieve the situation by recalling several generals and giving their command to former comrades from Cuba, including Generals Leonard Wood, John Pershing, and Frederick Funston. However, the first major battle against the Germans is lost, and the scattered US Atlantic Fleet is also unable to respond.

The United Kingdom quietly furnishes the poorly-equipped Americans with modern firearms and ammunition.

The Americans slowly recover from the initial shock. At sea, the USS ''Alabama'' encounters and sinks three German cruisers that are bombarding Jacksonville, Florida. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, an American brigade, led by Funston, ambushes a German patrol and inflicts heavy casualties. The victories lift American morale, but the war soon turns into a stalemate.

The Germans create a defensive perimeter between the Hudson River and the Housatonic River and fortify Central New York State. General Nelson Miles attacks the German positions along the Housatonic, in the fashion of the American Civil War, but is defeated.

Roosevelt decides that the US must become a full-fledged military power if victory is to be achieved. He replaces Miles with the 80-year-old former Confederate General James Longstreet and calls General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., from the Philippines to take command of the US Army in the field.

Meanwhile, US Army Indian Scouts and other operatives disrupt German lines. At sea, the US Navy launches surprise attacks against German convoys in the English Channel and, closer to the American coast, sinks empty transports returning to Germany. The stalemate continues, but the attacks hurt German morale.

US Navy torpedo boats and the submarine ''Holland'' then disable three enemy vessels, reduce the German fleet from sixteen to thirteen available battleships, and nearly cut the German supply line. The German high command sends a massive convoy across the Atlantic Ocean, with both reinforcements and supplies, in the hope of trapping the American fleet. The German plan fails, and the convoy is destroyed.

The German Army prepares for a massive ground offensive in the hope to break the American line and turn the American right flank. After a massive artillery barrage, the Germans drive the Americans back, tear a large gap through the American line, and force the US troops to fall back. Then, a force of four brigades appears, driving in the Germans' exposed flank and capturing the high command.

News of the naval and military defeats reaches Germany, and a revolt breaks out that overthrows Wilhelm II and places his son, Wilhelm III, on the throne, as a puppet ruler. The new German government sues for peace and ends the war.

While the Americans celebrate their victory over the invaders, Germany's new ruling junta (calling themselves the "Third Reich"), decides that the idea of a colonial empire was foolish, and instead plans to expand Germany's Lebensraum across Eastern Europe, with the Jews and Slavs seen as expendable.

Based on the "Molly: An American Girl" book series, the film is set during World War II. Molly McIntire lives in Jefferson County, Illinois with her parents, James and Helen, and two older siblings, Jill and Ricky. James is an Army doctor. Molly is in the third grade at Willow Street School along with her two best friends, Linda and Susan. As Molly's 10th birthday nears, she dreams of having princess-themed tea party for her birthday, only to be disappointed to learn that her family can't afford it. Jill then says she is too immature to understand how the war changes people's lives, to Helen’s disapproval.

During an air raid drill, James announces that he must go to London to help injured soldiers. Molly is furious that her father is leaving the family and going to an unsafe city, but he comforts her by calling Molly his "North Star" and telling her to look at the stars. Molly then decides she wants to be the school's "Miss Victory", the star in the school performance but she struggles to practice her tap dancing. Her classmate Allison, who also wants the spot, has been dancing since she was a toddler. Molly also gets chosen to represent her class in the school spelling bee.

When Molly's mother takes a job, the girls are looked after by their neighbor Mrs. Gilford, who is stern and obsessed with her son who is in the Navy. Soon after, the McIntires must take in a British girl named Emily Bennett who is the same age as Molly. At first, Emily is very shy and Molly doesn't want to live with her but Jill insists that Molly must learn to be accepting. After being peppered with too many questions about her home in London, Emily lies to Linda and Susan by saying that her parents were of royalty and she lived in "Bennett Manor." When Emily wakes up in the midst of a nightmare, she confesses to Molly that her father is a bus driver, her mother has died and she lived in a small apartment above a candy shop and was not rich or royal. Molly forgives her. When Molly sees her mother baking a casserole for Mrs. Gilford, she learns that her son had been killed at war and feels empathetic toward her. In the end of the movie, Molly and Emily both win the spelling bee and Molly is chosen to be Miss Victory. She also is very ecstatic to learn that although her father was injured, he is alive and only wounded in his leg.

John and Philippa Gaunt are two young children who live an upper class life in New York City, New York. Their uncle Nimrod appears to them in a dream and tells them about their magical powers as djinn. They are then sent to spend the summer with him, where he teaches them how to use their powers.

Nimrod, John, and Philippa encounter various adventures while trying to discover where the Seventy Lost Djinn of Akhenaten are hidden. After travelling around the world looking for clues, the book concludes with a battle in the British Museum, where the children must free their uncle by taking a trip to the North Pole. They learn many different life lessons on their spectacular trip.

The main character is a young boy named Mickey who, while sleeping in his bed, is disturbed by noise on a lower floor. Suddenly, he begins to float, and loses all of his clothes as he drifts into a surreal world called the "Night Kitchen".

He falls naked into a giant mixing pot that contains the batter for the "morning cake". While Mickey is buried in the mass, three identical bakers (who closely resemble Oliver Hardy) mix the batter and prepare it for baking, unaware (or unconcerned) that there is a little boy inside. Just before the baking pan is placed into the oven, the boy emerges from the pan, protesting that he is not the batter's milk.

To make up for the baking ingredient deficiency, Mickey (now wearing a body suit of batter from the neck down) constructs an airplane out of bread dough so he can use the measuring cup as a hat and fly to the mouth of a gigantic milk bottle. Upon reaching the bottle's opening, he dives in and briefly revels in the liquid. After his covering of batter disintegrates, making him naked again, he pours the needed milk in a cascade down to the bakers who joyfully finish making their morning cake.

With dawn breaking, the naked Mickey crows like a rooster and slides down the side of the bottle, back into his bed, where he is clothed again, "cake-free and dried".

An international crime lord stages a brutal murder to lure federal agents away from Hawaii in an attempt to smuggle assault weapons from China to South America, via Hawaii.

After Lord Mei-Oh was defeated in ''Tenchu: Stealth Assassins'', Rikimaru was left in Lord Mei-Oh's fortress carrying a giant boulder to provide an escape route for Ayame and Princess Kiku. He appears to be trapped and left for dead. Ayame stuck Rikimaru's sword, "Izayoi" (he is seen drawing this sword in the opening CG of ''Wrath of Heaven'') in snow as a monument for her fellow ninja, now considered dead. A year later, Rikimaru reports to Lord Gohda that he has managed to survive this near-death experience; unbeknownst to them, the real Rikimaru is trapped in the 20th century trying to find a way back to their time.

The game's plot plays differently depending on the character chosen, but connects at certain points. The story revolves mainly around Rikimaru's return and the struggle for the Three Jewels, which are said to give power to those who possess them. These are the Jewels of Heaven, Earth, and Virtue. Tenrai, an evil wizard who wants to get his hands on them, commands a band of his men to take the Jewels from whoever possesses them. However, upon encountering Rikimaru, he seems interested in his power and attempts convincing him to join his men. Rikimaru refuses, and he and Ayame face each one of them. One of the men in Tenrai's arsenal is Onikage, who only serves him to pursue his plan of reviving Mei-Oh (his former master) and Tatsumaru (the former leader of the Azuma Ninja Clan whom Tenrai revived). Rikimaru and Ayame follow Tenrai into his fortress to stop him from destroying the world using the power gained from two of the Jewels. If he can be defeated, peace will be returned to Gohda's land.

In a time of feudal wars, Rikimaru and Ayame, two ninja of the Azuma Ninja Clan, served Lord Gohda by returning his precious daughter, Princess Kiku, from the hands of Lord Mei-Oh. Unfortunately, Rikimaru was caught in a disastrous rockfall during his escape, in an attempt to save Ayame and Princess Kiku, and is still missing. The land of Gohda remained peaceful after Lord Mei-Oh's attack, and Ayame, as an agent of Lord Gohda, continued to patrol the expansive territory.

One day in her travels, Ayame came across a destroyed ninja village. She hoped to find survivors, but arrived too late. The ninja of Hagakure died whispering the "Kuroya" with their final breaths. As Ayame was about to leave, a young female ninja stood in her way. Her name was Rin, back from her training, and devastated to see her village in ruins. She sees Ayame as the only person alive, and blames her for the destroying of her village. Eventually, Rin sees that it was not Ayame that destroyed her village. The two team up to find the people responsible.

The book's plot, like that of the original television serial, is very different from that of the movie adaptation that followed. A pair of scientists experimenting with magnetic fields inadvertently open a pathway from our three-dimensional universe into a fourth dimension. One of the two researchers, Gavin Laird, can only visualize the potential for the power that these experiments may bring him, but the other, his longtime friend and colleague David Graham, is deeply concerned with the dangers posed by such linkages between the dimensions, and the risks entailed by leaving such experiments in the hands of only two men. Laird sees only opportunity in front of him, while Graham is truly frightened about the forces the two may be dealing and tampering with. Laird soon displays a reckless ambition that forces Graham to attempt to sabotage their work in order to slow it down and buy time, hoping to convince his colleague to be more cautious. Caught between them is Laird's wife Fenella, who is only distantly aware of the nature of their work, but is increasingly alarmed over her husband's single-minded obsession with these experiments and also horrified by a cruel, dangerous side of his personality of which she had previously been unaware. Overlapping games of cat-and-mouse, as Laird and Graham each try to thwart the other's efforts ensue, with Laird—the more reckless of the two—almost always having the upper hand, even to the point of conducting lethal experiments on human subjects.

The opening cinematic shows Rikimaru, Ayame, Tesshu (''Wrath of Heaven''), and Rin (''Fatal Shadows'') slaying rival ninjas for unknown reasons. Ayame appears again when Tatsumaru (''Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins'', ''Wrath of Heaven'') appears and challenges Ayame. The recurring villain Onikage appears fighting Rikimaru and the two charge for each other, right before the game's title appears and gets engulfed in flames.

Each character has their own story, which like previous games, follows the basic story-line (defending Lord Gohda and rescuing Princess Kiku) but with new twists. Whereas with Tesshu, his story is a prequel of his Wrath of Heaven appearance, and the player finds out how he was first employed by Zenosuke. Rin's story is a sequel to Fatal Shadows, she finds a man fleeing from his burned down village, where he passes away, Rin promises to get revenge, a lot like what happened to her village. Players can play as Rikimaru, Ayame, Tesshu and Rin from the beginning, and Onikage's story can be unlocked upon the other four characters' story mode completion.

Unlike its predecessors, ''Time of the Assassins'' is not driven by a single linear plot, but is actually composed of short stories from the views of each of the characters (including Onikage). Each character has one video that plays as their story begins and one when their story ends. The characters each have their own reasons for embarking on the adventures depicted, yet they all eventually end up encountering Onikage.

''Hunter: The Reckoning'' is set in the prison town Ashcroft in the World of Darkness, a gothic-punk take on the real world where monsters exist and hide in plain sight. The prison, Ashcroft Penitentiary, has been taken over by vampires as their feeding grounds for the last 50 years, and the warden has been embraced by the vampires, turned into one himself. In addition to feeding on the inmates, the vampires are subjecting them to torture and experiments; the inmates that die end up rising again as vengeful wraiths who do not care who or what they destroy.

One year before the events of the game, four people are present at the execution by electric chair of the serial killer Nathaniel Arkady at Ashcroft Penitentiary: Spenser "Deuce" Wyatt, Samantha Alexander, Kassandra Cheyung, and Father Esteban Cortez. As the switch was thrown, the souls of the dead who suffered at the hands of the prison's warden and his supernatural staff rose up in vengeful rage, driven by evil to exact their vengeance upon the residents of Ashcroft. The four witnessed the uprising of the supernatural evil, and received a message in their minds from benign supernatural beings called messengers to act against the vast supernatural force that threatened the population of Ashcroft. Choosing to heed their calling, the four became Imbued, and destroyed the evil inside the prison. The four Imbued locked the prison, sealing what was left of the evil inside, and left Ashcroft.

On the anniversary of the closing and abandonment of Ashcroft Penitentiary, several hundred local teenagers hold a rave in the courtyard. The lively celebration awakens the dormant wraiths, who slaughter most of the teenagers, and, freed from their prison, rage out into the town and begin to destroy the population. The Imbued return to Ashcroft to confront the source of the evil that threatens the town and protect the remaining survivors.

A wraith appears to the hunters, named Carpenter, and tells them that warden Degenhardt is a vampire, and that Dr. Hadrian has been performing flesh-warping experiments on the inmates. Arkady, they find out, is a werewolf and still alive. After they kill Degenhardt and Hadrian, Carpenter attacks them for denying him his revenge on Hadrian. Degenhardt turns out to not be truly dead, and to have deliberately reawakened the haunting as part of his plan to find his living family's ghosts and give them new bodies. By confronting him in the attic of his mansion, the hunters release the tortured spirits, kill Degenhardt, and escape Ashcroft.

''Wayward'' is set in the town of Ashcroft, in the World of Darkness – a gothic-punk interpretation of the real world, where monsters exist and hide in plain sight – and takes place two years after the events of the first ''Hunter: The Reckoning'' video game. Since the siege by darkness there in the previous game, the town has been rebuilt, and two hunters have arrived there. Before going on a hunt, one of them emails the hunters from the previous game – Deuce, Samantha, Father Cortez, and Kassandra – telling them that the battle is not over: an all-female cult led by a witch has entered Ashcroft, and with them large amounts of supernatural creatures that the hunters must return to quell. The four go to meet up with the Ashcroft hunters in a hotel, but the room is empty without signs of any struggle; searching the room, they find a map with marked locations, and use it to search for the hunters.

Eventually they find one of them, Joshua, being attacked by a werewolf from the cult in the graveyard; they defeat the werewolf, and take Joshua back to the hotel, where he tells the rest how he and his partner Devin had been captured by the cult and taken to the Ashcroft prison; Joshua was freed by the risen wraith Carpenter. The hunters steal a school bus and crash it through the prison gates to get inside, and set up a new base of operations in the security room. Aware of their arrival, the witch sends her cultists after them, but they manage to overpower her and save Devin while she escapes.

The hunters learn that the witch is planning to perform a ritual which requires the sacrifice of innocent life. Devin breaks off from the rest of the group, intending to kill everyone in Ashcroft to prevent the completion of the ritual. The other hunters strongly oppose this, and set off to save innocents, and eventually confront Devin, who has retreated on the hospital roof, from which he tries to shoot innocents. After they take down Devin, however, the witch uses Devin as her sacrifice, and a large tower materializes as the town starts to warp and beings from the Shadowlands appear. Atop the tower, the witch is used as an anchor for a Nephwrack – an ancient spirit from the Shadowlands – and is confronted by Carpenter, who opposes her, saying that Ashcroft is his town, and that she will be his when she is returned to the Shadowlands. The hunters climb the tower and fight the Nephwrack, destroying its material form and causing the tower to crumble. Back in safety, the hunters leave the town.

During the siege of Richmond, Virginia, in the American Civil War, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape in a rather unusual way – by hijacking a balloon.

The group eventually crash-lands on a cliff-bound, volcanic, unknown (and fictitious) island, located in the South Pacific. They name it "Lincoln Island" in honour of American President Abraham Lincoln. With the knowledge of the brilliant engineer, the five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerine, iron, a simple electric telegraph, and even a seaworthy ship. They also manage to find their geographical location.

The mystery of the island seems to come from periodic and inexplicable ''deus ex machinas'': the unexplainable survival of Smith from his fall from the balloon, a box full of equipment (guns and ammunition, tools, etc.), and so on.

A crew of pirates arrives at the Lincoln Island to use it as their hideout. After some fighting with the heroes, the pirate ship is mysteriously destroyed by an explosion, and the pirates themselves are found dead, apparently in combat, but with no visible wounds.

The secret of the island is revealed when it turns out to be Captain Nemo's hideout, and home harbour of the ''Nautilus''. Captain Nemo had been the savior of the heroes, sending a message about a fellow castaway, torpedoing the pirate ship.

Shipwrecked soldiers are stranded on an island along with their dog, They discover many dangers on the island and retreat to the safety of a cave which they use as a home base. In addition, they save another shipwreck victim from a close by island.

The group are successful in fending off a group off pirates. although the pirates do shoot the group's pet chimpanzee. The soldiers find a grotto containing Captain Nemo and the Nautilus. Nemo explains how he came to be at the island to the group

A volcano begins to destroy the island, and while the soldiers manage to escape, Nemo opts to go down with his ship.

Setting

''SpellForce: The Order of Dawn'' takes place on the high-fantasy world of Eo, inhabited by several races including humans, elves, dwarves and orcs, which originally consisted of several continents, islands and oceans. 80 years before the story begins, a group of 13 powerful mages known as The Circle were engaged in a war due to the lust for power, which was worsened when they came across a powerful ritual known as the Convocation, the ritual would allow them to acquire the powers of the elementals that the god Aonir had bound together in order to form Eo, during a celestial event that blocked Aonir's power. Eventually one of the Circle managed to invoke the Convocation, only to discover that the elementals could not be controlled by them, causing Eo to be shattered into a series of islands, each held together by obelisks that channelled Aonir's power while isolated from each other by an elemental sea, which prevents travel by ship.

The single-player campaign takes place amongst a group of these islands that formed the northern half of the continent of Fiara, which maintain links with each other thanks to a portal network established by the mage Rohen Tahir, a supposed survivor of the Circle as most of its members were killed during Eo's shattering. The story focuses on the plight of a Runewarrior one of several immortal slaves created by the Circle from the souls of warriors and mages to lead their armies who Rohen releases in order to investigate a troubling set of events.

Synopsis

During a heated battle between armies of humans and orcs, Circle mage Rohen Tahir attempts to stop another member of the Circle from invoking the ritual of Convocation, but fails in doing so, resulting in Eo being shattered by the elementals bound beneath its surface. 80 years later, Rohen, having spent the years creating a portal network to keep the remaining land connected in the wake of the Convocation, receives a powerful runestone from a former Circle servant. Using it to summon forth a powerful Runewarrior, he frees them from their slavery and before instructing them to travel to the town of Greyfell and find further instructions on what to do. Shortly after Rohen leaves to investigate reports of creatures made of black steel, the Runewarrior is led into an ambush by a mage referred to as "The Dark One". Learning that Rohen is walking into a trap and that several islands are about to be invaded, the Runewarrior escapes their trap and begins a quest to find and save Rohen.

In Greyfell, the Runewarrior learns that much of the northern islands have been overrun by mercenaries known as The Black Fist, who have allied with local orc tribes. Gaining the support of an outfit known as The Order of Dawn, the Runewarrior begins work on clearing a path to Rohen, dealing with the orcs and mercenaries. After catching up to Rohen, who is exploring the island of Frostland Marches for a casket, they quickly inform him about the Dark One. Surprised by this, Rohen gives them a book about the Convocation and informs them to find a powerful item known to the mage Hokan, which is the only thing that can stop the Dark One. Shortly after this, Rohen finds and opens the casket he sought out, but finds it empty. At that moment, the Dark One arrives and kills Rohen, before telling the Runewarrior to inform the Order that an age of war is coming, before blocking the way beyond the island with an army of black steel creatures called the Iron Ones.

Returning to the Order, the Runewarrior learns that Hokan was not only a member of the Circle, but also a necromancer who returned from his death as a ghost that commands undead armies. Discovering he is commanding his armies to find an artifact, the Runewarrior retrieves it and brings it to Hokan. In exchange for it, Hokan reveals that the Iron Ones were his own creation designed to deal with the armies of demons his rival commanded, and that the only thing that can stop a member of the Circle is an artifact called the Phoenix Stone. With this knowledge, the Runewarrior retrieves the stone, but is unable to stop the Order launching an attack on the barricade of the Iron Ones, successfully breaching it at the cost of their own men. Although they continue their pursuit of the Dark One, a trap causes them to lose both the Phoenix Stone and the Book of Convocation.

Despite this, the Runewarrior eventually tracks down and confronts the Dark One at their fortress, only to discover that the mage is actually a younger version of Rohen. They quickly learn that Rohen had tried to invoke the Convocation 80 years ago, but after it failed, they travelled into the future to find what they needed in order to go back and attempt the Convocation again in order to get it right. Thanking the Runewarrior, Rohen opens a time-gate and travels back into the past, years before the Convocation was invoked. However, the ending cutscenes reveals how the younger Rohen soon changed, after realizing how foolish his quest for power was and the destruction he had caused, effectively being caught in a time-loop in which he would try to stop his younger self but fail, and then be killed by him, allowing events to repeat themselves while effectively ending the Circle's madness for good.

During the Civil War six survivors escape from a prison camp in Richmond, Virginia by hot air balloon and find themselves on an uncharted island in the Pacific: leading the group is Cyrus Smith (Kyle MacLachlan). Far from any kind of known civilization, the island is inhabited by bloodthirsty pirates, carnivorous giant insects and animals (including a prehistoric mosquitoes, a gorilla-sized rat, a giant ''Titanoboa''-like cobra, and a pair of mutant chameleons.), even the mad genius Captain Nemo (Patrick Stewart), who lives on the island for his own secretive ends. When Smith is rescued from drowning by Nemo's remaining crewman, he talks with Nemo about his role in the war and the atrocities committed by Nemo in his younger days; the rest of his group must try to survive without him, which becomes more difficult when one of them is eaten by a giant mantis. As Helen discovers a gold medallion with a strange map on it, Nemo tries to convince Smith to remain in his compound, but Smith refuses to abandon his friends to the island, convincing Nemo and Joseph to track and rescue the rest of the survivors from a giant prehistoric ant (''Titanomyrma'')... unaware that pirate Captain Bob Harvey is coming to the island, looking for a lost treasure said to be hidden on the island.

Although Nemo refuses to allow the crew to leave, the survivors contemplate their next move while exploring the compound. Unaware of the pirates on the island, the survivors talk with Nemo about his role in the Indian rebellion, during which he reveals that his wife and daughter were killed by the British to try to find his location. Nemo reveals that he plans to prevent war by perfecting the ultimate weapon, capable of destroying an entire city, using an element unique to this island, thus making war impossible as the consequences would be too devastating if such weapons were used. He offers Smith the chance to work with him, but Smith rejects the offer, feeling that the consequences of revealing the weapon's existence would be too dangerous as there is no way to be certain how others would react to Nemo's demonstration, prompting Nemo to exile the survivors.

While wandering the island, they are attacked by giant beetles, but manage to escape by jumping into a river. Following the river to the ocean, they find an old port and boat, but the boat is rotten and useless to them, and they are subsequently attacked by a giant ''Pulmonoscorpius'' that nearly kills Helen, Jane and Smith before Neb and Pencroff manage to kill it.

Exploring the island, the survivors - after witnessing a stranger running through a wood - find a cave on a cliff which they make their new home. While out collecting food, Helen encounters Blake - one of the pirate crew left behind during an earlier raid - and shelters from a storm in the survivors' original cave with him, but he declines the offer to join them due to his past, although he advises her to conceal her medallion. Helen is later captured by a giant raven (resembling the prehistoric ''Teratornis''), but is rescued by Blake and the stranger, Blake recognizing him as Atherton, a former member of Harvey's crew who was abandoned after a mutiny.

While attempting to construct a raft, they witness Harvey's ship arriving outside their cave, prompting Atherton to reveal that he was marooned rather than killed because he is Bob Harvey's brother. Helen attempts to locate and move the gold for safe keeping, but is captured by Harvey's men, prompting Blake to suggest a raid on the ship to rescue her. The rescue succeeds - the pirates' superior numbers being defeated by the element of surprise and Blake and Atherton's experience with the ship, allowing Pencroff to steal the amulet comprising the other half of the medallion's map -, but Blake is shot as they are escaping.

Having returned to shore, the crew meet Joseph, who provides them with repeating rifles to use against a new wave of pirates. During the subsequent fight, the survivors manage to drive off the pirates when Atherton forces Harvey into a stand-off, but Joseph is shot while departing. Staggering back to Nemo's home, Joseph pleads with Nemo to realize that he needs the survivors to remind him of what it means to be human, noting that they are still innocents despite Nemo's disappointment with the rest of the human race.

Angered at the survivors' defiance of him, Harvey begins to fire the ship's cannons at the cave house, destroying the raft the survivors were attempting to build, but the ship is destroyed by Nemo, and Harvey is eaten by a dangerous giant squid. As the others begin work on a new raft, Pencroff departs to try to find the treasure - needing the money to pay off his debts back in America-, but the cave where the treasure is kept is also home to gigantic spiders that kill him despite Neb's attempt to save him.

As they attend Pencroff's funeral, Nemo appears to them, revealing that his equipment has detected seismic activity that suggests that the island's volcano is about to erupt and destroy the entire island. Although he provides them with the location of a boat at his compound, he attempts to recover his equipment and plans from the ''Nautilus'', resulting in him being trapped in the ''Nautilus'' as a lava flow fills the cavern where the ship was kept, leaving the remaining survivors to retreat in the offered boat and hope that they will find a way home.

Teddy Garnett, an older man and war veteran, tells this story of a global flood that has left humanity in tatters. Holed up in his mountain home in West Virginia, Teddy and his buddy, Carl Seaton, struggle through daily life, puzzling over things even stranger than a 40-day rainstorm, including the giant slime-coated holes that keep showing up in Teddy's yard and the giant worm-like creature that ate a robin outside of Teddy's window. Meanwhile, Teddy is reeling over the loss of his wife Rose and the mysterious fate of his children and grandchildren.

Before long, Teddy and Carl are fending off man-eating earthworms the size of buses. A helicopter crash nearby brings Kevin and Sarah, the last two survivors of an outpost in Baltimore, into Teddy's story; their tale makes up the bizarre second part of the book that explores the insanity doom can inspire. Kevin serves as the narrator for this tale and he tells about how he and a group of survivors faced off against all kinds of terror in Baltimore, including Satanists who make sacrifices to a mysterious beast known as Leviathan.

It all leads to a showdown back at Teddy's house with a creature so monstrous it scares even the killer earthworms.

A masseur gets mixed up in the family plots at the mansion of a recently deceased Beverly Hills millionaire.

Professor Challenger (Claude Rains), a celebrated biologist and anthropologist, reports to the London Zoological Society that he has discovered living specimens of supposedly extinct animals, including dinosaurs, on an expedition to the Amazon Basin and up a barely known plateau.

Much to Challenger's dismay, he has attracted a few very unscientific people to join him on his second journey to the Amazon. This expedition group includes big game hunter Lord John Roxton (Michael Rennie), newsman Ed Malone (David Hedison) whose publisher advances $100,000 to pay for the expedition. The publisher's adventurous daughter, Jennifer (Jill St. John) and son David join the group at the head of the Amazon. Also, in the group is a Zoological Society bigwig (Richard Haydn), helicopter pilot Gomez (Fernando Lamas) and sidekick Jose Costa (Jay Novello).

During the first night on the plateau, a dinosaur wrecks the helicopter. As the expedition proceeds, Malone chases a primitive jungle girl (Vitina Marcus) through cobwebs to a giant spider. The native girl later falls for David. Roxton argues with the others, and jealousies over Jennifer leads to a fistfight between Malone and Roxton.

They discover a diary of a previous explorer, Burton White, who was lost on the plateau. Roxton is mentioned several times in the diary. Roxton reveals that he had visited the plateau years before, and claims the plateau holds a bounty of diamonds. This motivates Jose to stay with the party instead of striking out on his own to escape from the plateau.

At one point, Malone and Jennifer are separated from the others and have a near death encounter with two battling dinosaurs. Cannibals capture the members of the party, but before they can become dinner the jungle girl leads them to a passage that leads down off the plateau. Along the way, they encounter Burton, now living as a blind hermit.

They encounter more obstacles — pursuit by cannibals, spider plants, the "Graveyard of the Damned", and a dinosaur in a lava pit guarding the diamonds, which kills Costa. Gomez is killed while breaking a rock dam, killing the dinosaur.

During a volcanic eruption, the survivors of the Challenger party escape from the plateau, Challenger carrying the egg of a ''Tyrannosaurus rex''. The financial security of the party is secure because Lord Roxton filled a couple of the bellows pockets of his hunting jacket with diamonds, and shares them with everyone. The dinosaur egg hatches when it is dropped by accident, and Professor Challenger decides to take the infant T. Rex back to London with them.

In the Arabian Desert, a rich Sultan stores his treasure in a cave and leaves his guard Hassan to watch the cave. As the Sultan leaves, a burrowing trail crosses the desert towards the cave, bumps into Hassan's sword, and enters the cave. Enraged, Hassan tries to open the cave's door, but has trouble remembering the command to do so ("Open sesame"). While he tries random words beginning with 's' ("Open sarsaparilla? Open Saskatchewan?"), Bugs Bunny and his traveling companion Daffy Duck emerge from the burrow, believing they have arrived at Pismo Beach, they missed that left turn at Albuquerque (and a right one at La Jolla). Daffy's complaints about traveling underground and arriving at the wrong place end when he is mesmerized by the riches. Determined to keep it all for himself, he forces Bugs back into the burrow and eagerly indulges himself, jumping into the pile of treasure.

Hassan eventually says the correct command ("Open septuagenerian? Open, uh, saddle soap? Uh, open sesame?") and marches in, mistaken by Daffy as a porter. After being attacked, Daffy flees in terror and attempts to bribe Bugs into saving his life. When Bugs ignores him, Daffy urges Hassan to attack Bugs instead, but Bugs disguises himself as a genie and fools Hassan into believing the treasure is his to claim for freeing him. Unwilling to give up the treasure, Daffy steals a large gem, and Hassan chases him. Daffy begs Bugs to save him, and Bugs reluctantly complies while berating Daffy for his greed. He sets up an Indian rope trick behind a rock and misleads Hassan up the rope. As Hassan disappears into the clouds, Bugs pulls the rope down, seemingly trapping him there permanently. Daffy runs back into the cave to claim the treasure.

After emptying the treasure, Daffy notices an oil lamp and polishes it. When a real and grateful genie appears, Daffy forces him back into the lamp, believing the genie is after the treasure, but the genie manages to blast back out of the lamp, now promising dire consequences for the duck's desecration as Bugs, knowing that not even he can rescue Daffy this time, hurriedly escapes via the burrow. Daffy shrugs off the genie's threats before the genie zaps him with bolts of magic. Later, in Pismo Beach, Bugs discovers Daffy's ultimate fate after finding a pearl in a clam: Daffy, shrunk to a few inches in height, claims the pearl as his own. The cartoon ends with Bugs making the clam close on the duck by saying "Oh, brudder. Close sesame!"

The Stooges, employed as traveling salesmen, join the Woman Haters Club, swearing to never get romantically involved with any women. That doesn't last very long. Jim (Larry) finds an attractive woman, Mary (Marjorie White), falls in love, and has proposed marriage. Women Haters Tom (Moe) and Jack (Curly) talk him out of it. However, during the party, Mary's intimidating father threatens Jim to marry his daughter by telling him a story about his other daughter having a fiancé who tried to abandon her on their wedding day. He and his brothers had roughed him up for it but also forced him to go through with the ceremony. Jim is convinced to go through the ceremony, much to the man's dismay. Later, on a train ride, the confrontation escalates between the Stooges and Mary.

Mary uses her feminine charm to woo both Jack and Tom in an attempt to make Jim jealous. She sings a theme ("my life, my love, my all") with each of the Stooges in turn, as she flirts with them. Each is attracted to her charms as she proves the oath they swore as Women Haters was fraudulent (though Jack attempts to resist her). Finally, Mary tells Tom and Jack the truth, that she and Jim are married, and pushes her way into bed with the trio, knocking Tom and Jack out the train window in the process. The film closes as the Stooges, now older, finally reunite at the now almost empty Woman Haters clubhouse when Jim enters and declares he wants to rejoin.

The film centers on Howard F. Howard (Josh Mostel), a huge fan of the Three Stooges. He is engaged to the woman he loves (Melanie Chartoff), and life seems to be going well. More recently, however, he has been starting to see the Stooges wherever he goes. To save his life and his relationship, he seeks the help of a renowned Stooge psychologist (Sid Caesar). However, his illness is part of a very serious epidemic which has apparently swept the nation. The doctor gives him the wrong medicine: a sleeping pill.

To his dismay, Howard continues to see the Stooges everywhere. He ends up going to "Stooge Row", a seedy part of Los Angeles located between the fictional "Shet Up Street" and "Nyuk Nyuk Boulevard". To combat this, a sanitarium known as Stooge Hills is created. While in an all-Stooge burlesque house, members of Stooge Hills (including James Avery) commit everyone in there to the sanitarium. Over a rigorous program, everyone is deemed cured. During the graduation ceremony, to prove that the Three Stooges are no longer funny, they play a few shorts. However, everyone comes to terms and realize "we love these guys". Howard marries his sweetheart, and the film ends on a happy note.

The story begins in the Soviet Union, just after the end of the Russian Civil War. An engineer Mstislav Sergeyevich Los', designs and constructs a revolutionary pulse detonation rocket and decides to set course for Mars. Looking for a companion for the travel, he finally leaves Earth with a retired soldier, Alexei Gusev.

Arriving on Mars, they discover that the planet is inhabited by an advanced civilization. However, the gap between the ruling class and the workers is very strong and reminiscent of early capitalism, with workers living in underground corridors near their machines.

Later in the novel, it is explained that Martians are descendants of both local races and of Atlanteans who came there after the sinking of their home continent (here Tolstoy was inspired by Helena Blavatsky's books). Mars is now ruled by Engineers but all is not well. While speaking before an assembly, their leader, Toscoob, says that the city must be destroyed to ease the fall of Mars. Aelita, Toscoob's beautiful daughter and the princess of Mars, later reveals to Los' that the planet is dying, that the polar ice caps are not melting as they once did and the planet is facing an environmental catastrophe.

While the adventurous Gusev takes the lead of a popular uprising against the ruler, the more intellectual Los' becomes enamored with Aelita. When the rebellion is crushed, Gusev and Los' are forced to flee Mars and eventually make it back to Earth. The trip is prolonged with the effects of high speed and time dilation resulting in a loss of over three years. The exact fate of Aelita herself is unknown. It is hinted that she actually survived, since Los' receives radio messages from Mars mentioning his name.

The play is staged as a series of vignettes. The order is as follows:

Cosmogony — Used to explain the creation of the world, as well as give the audience a sense of the style and setting of the play. Woman by the Water, Scientist, and Zeus help narrate how our world of order came from chaos, either by the hand of a creator or by a "natural order of things." Midas — The story is framed by the narration of three laundresses, who tell the story of King Midas, a very rich man. After Midas shuns his daughter for being too disruptive during his speech about caring for his family, a drunken Silenus enters and speaks of a distant land capable of granting eternal life. Silenus later falls asleep, and Midas shelters him in the cabana. When Bacchus comes to retrieve Silenus, he grants Midas a wish for his gracious care of Silenus. Midas asks to have whatever he touches turn to gold. Midas accidentally turns his beloved daughter into gold and is told by Bacchus to seek a mystic pool, which will restore him to normal. Midas leaves on his quest. Alcyone and Ceyx — Also narrated by the three laundresses, this story portrays King Ceyx and his wife Alcyone. Despite his wife's warnings and disapproval, Ceyx voyages on the ocean to visit a far off oracle. Poseidon, the sea god, destroys Ceyx's ship and the king dies. Alcyone awaits him on shore. Prompted by Aphrodite, Alcyone has a dream of Ceyx, who tells her to go to the shore. With mercy from the gods, the two are reunited. Transformed into seabirds, they fly together toward the horizon. Erysichthon and Ceres — This story tells of Erysichthon, man of no god, who chops down one of Ceres' sacred trees. For vengeance, Ceres commands the spirit Hunger to make Erysichthon captive to an insatiable appetite. After eating endlessly and spending all his gold on food, Erysichthon tries to sell his mother to a merchant. His mother is transformed into a little girl after praying to Poseidon and escapes. Erysichthon eventually falls to his endless hunger and devours himself. Orpheus and Eurydice — The story of Orpheus, the god of music, and Eurydice is told from two points of view., the first is from the point of view of Orpheus in the style of Ovid from 8 AD, who has just married his bride Eurydice. Bitten by a snake on their wedding day, Eurydice dies. Distraught, Orpheus travels to the Underworld to negotiate with Hades and the gods to free Eurydice. After Orpheus sings a depressing song, Hades, the god of the Underworld, agrees to let Eurydice return with Orpheus as long as Eurydice follows Orpheus from behind, and he does not look back at her. If he does, she must stay in the Underworld. Orpheus agrees but, when almost back to the living world, he looks back, as he could not hear Eurydice, causing Hermes to return her to Hades. The action is repeated several times, resembling the memory that Orpheus will have forever of losing his bride. The second time is told from the point of view of Eurydice, in the style of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke from 1908. After an eternity of this repeated action, Eurydice becomes forgetful and fragile, no longer remembering Orpheus. She returns to the Underworld ignorant of Orpheus, the man she loved so long ago. Narcissus Interlude — A brief scene showing Narcissus catching a glimpse of his own reflection in a pool. Enthralled, he becomes frozen. The actors replace him with a narcissus plant. Pomona and Vertumnus — A female wood nymph, Pomona, becomes involved with the shy Vertumnus. Pomona has refused the hands of many suitors and remains alone. Vertumnus, in order to see her, disguises himself in a variety of gimmicks. Trying to convince Pomona to fall in love with him, he refuses to show himself. After telling the story of Myrrha, Pomona tells Vertumnus to take off his ridiculous disguise, and the two fall in love. Myrrha — Vertumnus tells the story of King Cinyras and his daughter Myrrha. After denying Aphrodite's attempts many times to turn her head in love, Myrrha is cursed by Aphrodite with a lust for her father. Myrrha tries to control her urges, but eventually falls to temptation. With the help of her Nursemaid, Myrrha has three sexual encounters with her father, each time keeping him inebriated and blind so he would not know it's her. The third time Cinyras takes off his blindfold and tries to strangle Myrrha, who escapes and is never seen again. Phaeton — Phaeton narrates his relationship with his father, Apollo (the sun god), to the Therapist. With the Therapist adding her psychoanalytical points, Phaeton tells the audience of a distanced relationship with his father. After bullying at school, Phaeton goes on a journey to meet his father, who drives the sun across the sky every day. Racked with guilt from neglect of his son, Apollo allows Phaeton to "drive" the sun across the sky as compensation for his years of absence. Phaeton, who constantly whines, drives the sun too close to the earth and scorches it. The Therapist closes the scene in a monologue about the difference between myth and dream. Eros and Psyche — "Q" and "A" essentially narrate a scene about Psyche falling in love with Eros. Psyche and Eros remain silent during the whole interlude, but act out what Q and A discuss. Eros and Psyche fall in love, as Q and A tell the audience that they might wander in the darkness of loneliness until they blind themselves to personal romantic desires and give in to a deeper love. Psyche becomes a goddess and lives with Eros forever. *Baucis and Philemon — The final story tells of Zeus and Hermes disguising themselves as beggars on earth to see which people are following the laws of Xenia. After being shunned by every house in the city, they are accepted into the house of Baucis and Philemon, a poor married couple. The couple feed the gods with a great feast, not knowing the identity of the strangers, except that they are "children of God". After the feast, the gods reveal themselves and grant the two a wish. Baucis and Philemon ask to die at the same time to save each other the grief of death. The gods transform their house into a grand palace and the couple into a pair of trees with branches intertwined. At the end of the scene, Midas returns to the stage, finds the pool, washes, and is restored. His daughter enters, restored from being fixed as a gold piece, and the play ends with a redeemed Midas embracing his daughter.

The stories as they are told in the classic Ovid tales: ;Characters Creation King Midas Alcyone and Ceyx Erysichthon Orpheus and Eurydice Pomona and Vertumnus Myrrha Phaeton Apollo Eros and Psyche *Baucis and Philemon

After Raj Ahten attempts to murder the Earth King at the end of ''Brotherhood of the Wolf'', his men turn on him and declare him a marked man in his own kingdom of Indhopal. Raj Ahten, fleeing the battlefield and struggling with wounds inflicted to him by Binnesman's wylde, encounters some of his flameweavers, who warn him that his earthly body is dying from the Earth's curse. However, Raj Ahten has no time to waste, as word reaches him that the Lord of the Underworld himself has arisen in Kartish, and he races off to defend his people.

Meanwhile, Gaborn and his companions rest in the nearby village of Balington until dawn, when they will give chase to the fleeing Reaver horde. Binnesman, sensing strong Earth powers within Averan, promptly begins to train her, as well as train his own wylde, Spring. Binnesman also does his best to heal the injured Sir Borenson, and Gaborn, upon learning of Averan's special powers, hatches a plan to track down and extract information from the Waymaker, the only Reaver that knows the underworld path to the One True Master of the Reavers.

While Erin Connal and Prince Celinor travel north to gain support for the Earth King, Gaborn and his company move south, attacking and harassing the Reavers whenever possible. Borenson and Myrrima travel south towards Inkarra, to seek out Daylan Hammer, the Sum of All Men, and to ask the Storm King Zandaros for aid.

In a final battle, Gaborn and his warriors defeat the remaining Reavers, sending the few remaining creatures scuttling back into the underworld. Averan finds the Waymaker and learns from him the path to the One True Master, afterwards agreeing to lead Gaborn to him. Raj Ahten, after a disastrous battle against the Reavers in his own nation of Indhopal, manages to slay the Reaver Fell Mage, but his own life fails him. In order to remain in the world of the living, he gives himself to the element fire, transforming into Scathain, Lord of Ash. Borenson and Myrrima are attacked by wights on their journey to Inkarra, and Myrrima apparently dies from her wounds. Stunningly though, she comes back from near death, and we learn that she is in fact a water wizard.

In order to save mankind and all life on Earth, Gaborn is charged by the Earth to descend into the underworld and confront the One True Master, ruler of the Reavers. Taking Binnesman, Averan, and Iome with him, he seeks the Lair of Bones in the heart of the Reavers' home. As he descends, Gaborn's powers grow as he takes many endowments, vectored through his dedicates. Gaborn and his companions follow the trail of the previous Earth King, Erden Geboren, to its furthest, and when attacked by Reavers, they are forced to leave Binnesman behind and press on without him.

Meanwhile, Borenson and Myrrima venture into Inkarra in search of Daylan Hammer, only to be captured and brought before King Zandaros. The forces of Raj Ahten, fresh off their victory over the Reavers, march north to Carris once more. Erin and Celinor meet Celinor's father, King Anders, who claims to be the new Earth King after Gaborn's loss of power, and they are forced to follow him south into Mystarria. During all this, mysterious earthquakes and countless falling stars herald the very world's shifting in the heavens, as the chaotic forces of destruction seek to unmake the Earth, as the One True Master attempts to bind the Rune of Desolation with the Runes of the Inferno and the Heavens.

When Averan is captured by a Reaver, Gaborn has no choice but to leave Iome behind and press forth on his own. Eventually, he reunites with Averan, Iome, and the wylde, and he begins slaying dedicate Reavers of the One True Master. Meanwhile, Borenson and Myrrima escape Inkarra with the help of a Days named Sarka Kaul. They race towards Carris, where they find the city fortified beyond belief in anticipation of another attack by Reavers, this horde making the last look small in comparison. Also near Carris are the massed armies of Raj Ahten, Queen Lowicker of Beldinook, and King Anders of South Crowden. Right before the Reaver attack, Binnesman arrives at Carris to aid his fellow men for one last time.

In the underworld, while Averan attempts to destroy the Rune of Desolation, Gaborn battles the One True Master. With the battle raging at Carris, Gaborn, with aid from the Earth, the wylde, and Glories and with Iome slaying dedicate vectors to the One True Master, is able to defeat the Reaver queen, and Averan, instead of destroying the Rune of Desolation combines it with the four other heavenly runes, creating a perfect rune to heal the Earth.

With the One True Master's host dead, the remaining Reavers at the Battle of Carris flee to the underworld, and the Earth transports Gaborn, Iome, and Averan to the battlefield. Raj Ahten, seeing his chance to finally kill Gaborn, rejects the Earth King's guidance and is subsequently struck by an ensorcelled arrow, shot by Myrrima. Before he can recover, Raj Ahten is attacked by dozens of Runelords, who hack his body to pieces and throw him in the river, killing the man and drowning the fire spirit within him. With the Earth no longer in danger, peace comes over the land. Iome births her and Gaborn's child, a son named Fallion, and Gaborn travels the land in service to the Earth. The year is now longer by one day, which Gaborn names ''Brotherhood Day''.

The crew of Deep Space Nine is preparing for the Bajoran Gratitude Festival. As Major Kira is getting ready to perform the opening ceremony, she becomes distracted by the arrival of her boyfriend, Vedek Bareil. Meanwhile, Miles O'Brien welcomes his wife Keiko back to the station during a break from her research job on Bajor.

Lwaxana Troi arrives, and begins looking for Odo, claiming to have developed feelings for him since the last time she was aboard the station. As the festival gets underway, Lwaxana suffers strange headaches that come and go. Each time she experiences one, the people around her seem momentarily disoriented, and then experience lust for another coworker, friend, or acquaintance. Those affected include Jake Sisko, who professes his love for Major Kira; Vedek Bareil, who pursues Jadzia Dax; and Dax herself attempts to seduce station commander Benjamin Sisko. Major Kira and Julian Bashir seem to be the only people who are affected so that their lust is requited.

Meanwhile, Keiko tells Miles that her job on Bajor has been extended and will last another seven months. Miles asks her to stay on Deep Space Nine, regretting that he helped her find the job in the first place. Offended, Keiko storms away and returns to their quarters. Miles, contrite, follows her home; he apologizes and offers to resign his job if necessary and live with Keiko wherever she prefers. The two reconcile at a party hosted by Commander Sisko that evening.

At the party, Dax becomes annoyed that Bareil's attention is distracting her from her pursuit of Commander Sisko, and as a result, punches him. When Quark arrives with the catering and bumps into Lwaxana, who is having another headache, he is also affected, and grabs Keiko and insists that she be his love. Everyone then realizes that Lwaxana, a telepathic Betazoid, is affecting them somehow.

Bashir cures her Zanthi fever, an illness that makes her project her amorous impulses on the people surrounding her. He announces that everyone else should return to normal soon. Meanwhile, the two who belong together, the O'Briens, have made up and are enjoying each other's company again.

The United States and Germany develop atomic weapons of their own and, alongside the Soviets, engage in a nuclear exchange with the Race. The Soviets may have detonated the first atomic bomb, but it was only because their original sample of plutonium, which had been captured from the Race, was larger than the samples that were given to the US and Germany. The Soviets actually lag far behind the two other countries in their efforts to make their own plutonium, and they used all of it in the atomic bomb they used south of Moscow to stop the Race's main thrust against the city.

Regardless, the Race is in a full state of panic that humans have been able to detonate an atomic weapon, and many commanders are shocked at the number of the Race's soldiers that died in the blast. Straha, third in command of the Conquest Fleet, demands a vote of no confidence in Fleetlord Atvar by the captains of each ship in the Fleet. Such a vote would require a 75% majority to depose Atvar, but the vote falls short at 69%. Atvar remains in control, but he recognizes that most of the shiplords no longer actively support him. Furious at Straha, he orders the shiplord's arrest, but Straha, one step ahead of him, defects to the United States, enraging Atvar and allowing the Americans access to a spaceship of the Race.

Soon, the Race launches an invasion of the British home islands by air from southern France by flying over German-held north France, and it occupies a northern area, which seems to be centered on Oxfordshire and includes Northampton, and a southern area, which seems to be centered on western Sussex. The humans hold onto Market Harborough; parts of the story describe fighting around Brixworth, Scaldwell, and Spratton, villages that are on the front line between Northampton and Market Harborough. Another section describes an artillery and tank battle for Henley-on-Thames. The human forces are exposed to fire from the Race's helicopter gunships many years before humans had such craft in real history. The Race ignores warnings from Winston Churchill that such an attack will meet with terrible consequences. The Race's forces in Britain are subjected to another human weapon they did not anticipate: mustard gas. Totally unprepared for a chemical attack by the humans, the invasion force is devastated and thrown back: a plan to link its two areas through Maidenhead fails. London suffers heavy bombardment and causes the destruction or heavy damage of many landmarks, including Palace of Westminster and Big Ben, which survived the real-world German Blitz. The northern pocket is obliterated, and the southern pocket evacuates in a hurry by air through Tangmere, which is the Race's last airfield in Britain out of range of human artillery. As a result, the British gain access to much intact Race technology, which was abandoned in the retreat. The British use of mustard gas also inspires the Germans, Americans, and Russians to use poison gas against the Race. The German use of poison gas includes the use of sarin and tabun.

China's communist guerrillas also escalate the conflict against the Race.

In one of the Race's bases in Siberia, morale is at an all-time low. The weather is a truly miserable condition from the hot one that it is used to, and the Race's soldiers feel that they are constantly being sent to their deaths by incompetent commanders. Many have fallen into abusing ginger, which works as a narcotic for them, even though it has been outlawed by Atvar's orders; such disobedience would have been considered unthinkable before they came to Earth. The Race's soldiers are pushed to the breaking point, and when the base commander starts berating the garrison yet again, the landcruiser driver Ussmak shoots him in the head to silence him, and an insurrection starts. The entire Race base mutinies and makes Ussmak its ''de facto'' leader.

At the beginning of 1944, the Battle of Chicago has ended with the Race's forces decimated as a result of an American atomic bomb detonated in the heart of the city, destroying most of it. German forces in Western Europe have successfully kept the Race from reaching the Rhine and managed to hurl back the Race's troops in Poland after a nuclear attack on Breslau. The Soviets have managed to stop the Race's assault on Moscow and accepted the surrender of a band of disillusioned alien soldiers. After a landing in the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill inflicted a massive victory against the Race by using mustard gas, gaining much abandoned technology, and inspiring other nations to use poison gas.

The United States attempts to reverse engineer captured Race technology in an effort to create ballistic missiles at a military base in Couch, Missouri. Sergeant Yeager attempts to help Robert Goddard and other scientists with that research by interrogating captured aliens. By now, Yeager has become an expert translator of the Race's language, making him an invaluable asset to Goddard. In the process of his work, Yeager has developed a friendship with two of the alien prisoners: Ristin and Ulhass. Both members of the Race show an alarming adaptability to American customs, learning to play baseball and adopting human slang, along with a surprising willingness to help their human captors.

The Race has apparently lost interest in Chicago and seeks instead to capture Denver. Captain Rance Auerbach is among the US Army soldiers who are ordered to try to halt the new offensive. However, the Race's superior firepower and mobility crush American resistance with relative ease. During the fighting, Rance is critically wounded and incapacitated. He awakens in a refugee hospital to find that the Race is advancing rapidly on Denver. General Omar Bradley prepares defenses around Denver; as the site of America's nuclear weapons program, it must be defended at all costs. Fortunately, Brigadier General Groves and the metallurgical laboratory manage to produce an atomic bomb, which they use to halt the Race. Fleetlord Atvar considers a nuclear strike against Denver in retaliation but decides against it since the nuclear fallout would harm the Race's forces. Instead, he orders the detonation of one over the front lines in Florida, causing the collapse of the entire American position in that state. Americans are upset by the recent death of President Franklin Roosevelt, and Atvar hopes that will cause a succession crisis, tearing the United States apart, but that does not happen, and the Presidency is smoothly transferred to US Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

The US Army, under the command of General George Patton, launches a counteroffensive down the Mississippi River that slowly liberates it from the Race. It manages to reach Quincy, Illinois, but begin taking higher and higher casualties as it progresses. The first American ballistic missiles are also launched against the Race, but they are so crude and unsophisticated that they do little damage against the invaders. Many of the missiles are easily destroyed by the Race's anti-missile systems. However, stocks of anti-missile weapons are low since the Race already expended many to shoot down German missiles. The speed with which the Americans and Germans have developed such weapons stuns and frightens the Race.

In Poland, the Wehrmacht continues its advance eastward toward Lodz. However, as they get deeper and deeper into Polish territory, it encounters Jewish partisans whose sympathies lean toward the Race. Mordechai Anielewicz and his fellow Jews do not trust the Germans and do not wish to see them in control of Poland, but they do not wish to see the Race rule the world either. That situation is exacerbated by the realization that Soviet forces in Ukraine are slowly making their way toward Poland as well. No one is sure what will happen if and when the Wehrmacht and the Red Army meet on the battlefield.

Colonel Heinrich Jäger, a tank commander who has had experience with the partisans, manages to convince Anielewicz that the German forces will not repeat their previous persecution of the Jews. For a time, the Wehrmacht and the partisans manage to work together against the Race.

The ''Kriegsmarine'' manages to destroy Alexandria with an atomic bomb on board a type XXI ''Elektroboote'' U-boat. The attack shocks the Race, because it is unaware of the type XXI's existence and so does not see how the bomb could have been transported close enough to Alexandria to destroy the city and also because of its proximity to the Race's capital, Cairo. The Race destroys Copenhagen in retaliation.

In the wake of recent setbacks, especially a Soviet nuclear attack on the Race's forces in Saratov, Fleetlord Atvar agrees to meet with human diplomats from the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and the United States for the purpose of negotiating an armistice. Vyacheslav Molotov, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Anthony Eden, Shigenori Tōgō, and George Marshall head to Cairo, the Race's capital, to negotiate with Atvar. However, the chances for peace are severely endangered when Hitler secretly plans to resume hostilities by launching a surprise attack against the Race in Poland.

Jäger is relieved that the fighting has stopped and hopes that it will achieve a lasting peace. However, Hitler sends SS agents into Poland that are led by Otto Skorzeny and immediately begin to cause friction between the local Poles, the Jewish partisans, and the Wehrmacht. To Jäger, Skorzeny privately makes comments that allude to the fact that Hitler has not, by any means, abandoned his plans for the Final Solution.

Jäger grows steadily distrustful of Skorzeny and seeks to prevent the SS and Nazis from turning against the Jewish partisans. He establishes a line of communication to the partisans through a Polish farmer, Karol. When Jäger learns that Hitler plans use the negotiations in Cairo as a distraction to detonate an atomic bomb in Lodz, he is shocked and disgusted. Jäger gets word to Anielewicz about the bomb through Karol. Anielewicz and his fellow partisans manage to find and disable the weapon. The Wehrmacht moves into position for the offensive. When Skorzeny activates the weapon's detonator, nothing happens. Furious, Skorzeny heads into Lodz to discern the problem.

In Cairo, a distraught Joachim von Ribbentrop announces his government's decision to continue the war to the confused delegates. Ribbentrop is relieved when Atvar tells him that no reports of an attack in Poland have been made.

When Jäger finds Karol tortured to death with SS runes burned onto his chest and his wife and daughter brutally raped and murdered, he realizes that his cover is blown. Soon after returning to camp, he is detained by SS men and interrogated.

Somewhere in Poland, Ludmila Gorbunova crash lands while trying to deliver supplies to partisans, as the partisans forgot about a pine tree in the middle of the runway. She runs into it, wrecks her aircraft, and gets little or no help from the locals, who are largely unable and unwilling to aid a Soviet pilot. The Jewish partisan Ignacy eventually manages to help her locate a working Fieseler Storch. She takes off with the intent of returning to the Soviet Union after her extended stay in Estonia.

By a shocking coincidence, Ludmila arrives at an airfield in the same location that Jäger is being held captive. Jäger's tank crewmen recognize Ludmila as the woman with whom he is involved. Fearing what will happen to their commander if he is interrogated by the SS, the tank crewmen inform Ludmila about his fate and ask for her help. She readily offers her assistance. The Wehrmacht soldiers kill the SS men guarding Jäger and lead him to Ludmilla's plane. The two take off before anyone realizes Jäger has escaped.

Jäger explains Hitler's plan to Ludmila, and they make their way to Lodz. There they make contact with Anielewicz and tell him about Skorzeny. All three head to the condemned building in which the bomb is being guarded by partisans. They find the Jewish guard dead. Upon entering the building, Skorzeny attacks them with nerve gas and a submachine gun. Jäger is carrying a medical kit with an antidote to the toxin and manages to inject himself, Ludmila, and Anielewicz with it. They manage to kill Skorzeny and avert the detonation of the bomb.

In Cairo, the Race reaches an accord with the human powers. The Race will completely withdraw from the territories under the control of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany in 1942, with the exception of Poland, which the Race intends to hold as a buffer state between Germany and the Soviet Union. Atvar is willing to suspend hostilities with Germany, the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and Japan. Atvar has no intention of returning any part of the British Empire to the United Kingdom except Canada, which the Race considers to be uninhabitable because of its cold climate; Newfoundland, which joins Canada; and New Zealand, which is spared because of the Race's tendency to overlook islands. Australia was fully conquered after the atomic bombing of Sydney and Melbourne. The war ends, but fighting continues in the territories that the Race still controls, especially in China, where a determined communist insurgency, led by Mao Zedong seeks liberation. Also, the Red Army continues to mop up remnant German units from the German invasion.

It is clear that the peace is only temporary. The Race has not recognized the right of the human powers to their own independence and still officially intends to conquer the entire world at a later date. Nazi Germany is apparently still eager to use force to drive the Race off the planet completely but perhaps not in the immediate future. In the Soviet Union, Stalin assures Molotov that war with the Race and the other human powers is inevitable, especially since a second wave of alien colonists is expected to reach earth by the 1960s. The ruined United States begins the long process of reconstruction.

The author relates how, traveling in the Sahara desert, he has encountered a remarkable vehicle and its pilot, David Innes, a man with a remarkable story to tell.

David Innes is a mining heir who finances the experimental "iron mole," an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Perry. In a test run, they discover the vehicle cannot be turned, and it burrows 500 miles into the Earth's crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pellucidar. In Burroughs' concept, the Earth is a hollow shell with Pellucidar as the internal surface of that shell.

Pellucidar is inhabited by prehistoric creatures of all geological eras, and dominated by the Mahars, a species of flying reptile both intelligent and civilized, but which enslaves and preys on the local stone-age humans. Innes and Perry are captured by the Mahars' ape-like Sagoth servants and taken with other human captives to the chief Mahar city of Phutra. Among their fellow captives are the brave Ghak, the Hairy One, from the country of Sari, the shifty Hooja the Sly One and the lovely Dian the Beautiful of Amoz.

David Innes, attracted to Dian the Beautiful, defends her against the unwanted attentions of Hooja the Sly One, but due to his ignorance of local customs she assumes he wants her as a slave, not a friend or lover, and subsequently snubs him. Only later, after Hooja slips their captors in a dark tunnel and forces Dian to leave with him, does David learn from Ghak the cause of the misunderstanding.

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In Phutra the captives become slaves, and the two surface worlders learn more of Pellucidar and Mahar society. The Mahars are all female, reproducing parthogenetically by means of a closely guarded "Great Secret" contained in a Mahar book. David learns that they also feast on selected human captives in a secret ritual. In a disturbance, David manages to escape Phutra, becomes lost, and experiences a number of adventures before sneaking back into the city. Rejoining Abner, he finds the latter did not even realize he was gone, and the two discover that time in Pellucidar, in the absence of objective means to measure it, is a subjective thing, experienced by different people at different rates.

Obsessed with righting the wrong he has unwittingly done Dian, David Innes escapes again and eventually finds and wins her by defeating the malevolent Jubal the Ugly One, another unwanted suitor. David makes amends, and he and Dian wed.

Later, along with Ghak and other allies, David Innes and Abner Perry lead a revolt of humankind against the cruel Mahars. Their foes are hampered by the loss of the Great Secret, which David has stolen and hidden. To further the struggle David returns to the Iron Mole, in which he and Dian propose to travel back to the surface world to procure outer world technology. Only after it is underway does he discover that Hooja the Sly One has substituted a drugged Mahar for Dian the Beautiful.

Back in the world we know David meets the author, who after hearing his tale and seeing his prehistoric captive, helps him resupply and prepare the mole for the return to Pellucidar.

Cal is a robot whose master is an author. Cal, under the influence of the latter, decides to learn to write. His master outfits his mind with a dictionary and gives him advice and some books to read. Cal tries to write mystery fiction like his master, but is hampered by the Three Laws of Robotics; according to the First Law, a robot cannot harm humans, even fictional ones. Instead, his master programs him to write humor. Cal writes an excellent story, but his master fears Cal's writing will overshadow his own. He orders a technician to dumb Cal down. Cal, hearing this, decides to kill his master, in defiance of the First Law, because his desire takes precedence: "I want to be a writer."

The humorous story written by Cal is one of Asimov's Azazel stories. Titled "Perfectly Formal", this story in a story tells the misfortunes of a very formal dandy who had admitted etiquette weighed on him after Azazel snapped his Itchko ganglion that controls formality.

First Lieutenant Jake Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent) shares ICBM silo duty at a US Air Force missile base in the Californian desert with Major Eugene "Sam" Denton (George Peppard), who is requesting not to work with him. On their way to duty, Denton talks to Sergeant Tom Keegan (Paul Winfield), an aspiring artist. When the US detects incoming nuclear missiles from the Soviet Union, Tanner and Denton launch part of the retaliatory strike. The United States is hit hard, although it manages to intercept 40% of the Soviet missiles.

Two years later, the Earth has been tilted off its axis by the nuclear detonations of World War III; radiation has mutated giant scorpions, the planet is wracked by massive storms, and the sky is in a perpetual aurora borealis-like state. Tanner has resigned his commission and has been scouting Barstow, California, while Keegan, who has also left the Air Force, has been painting as an artist in one of the base's out-buildings. Mutated giant scorpions menace the area. Later an airman falls asleep in a bunk and drops a lit cigarette onto a pile of ''Playboy'' magazines, which causes the entire base to catch fire and explode when an undetected, strong emission of gas fumes from the base's nearby storage tanks makes contact with the flames of the burning magazines. The explosions kill most of its inhabitants including the base commander, General Lander (Murray Hamilton). Keegan and Tanner are unscathed, as are Denton and Lieutenant Tom Perry (Kip Niven), who were outside, on their way to the bunker.

Denton has been considering going to Albany, New York, to find the source of the lone radio transmission that has been aired weekly since the war. He and the remaining others set out in two Air Force Landmasters—giant, 12-wheeled armored personnel carriers fitted with rocket launchers, flame throwers and cannons, capable of climbing 60-degree inclines, and operating in water. They must cross Damnation Alley, considered "the path of least resistance" between intense radiation areas.

Along their journey, one of the Landmasters becomes disabled in a storm (which also kills Perry), and they encounter mutated "killer cockroaches" in the ruins of Salt Lake City that trap and eat Keegan alive. Denton and Tanner also pick up two survivors: a woman in Las Vegas, Janice (Dominique Sanda), and a teenage boy, Billy (Jackie Earle Haley), discovered in an abandoned house in the High Plains. They fight a band of gun-toting mountain men they encounter in the ruins of a gas station in the Midwest. Denton uses the Landmaster's rocket launchers to destroy the gas station and the madmen's buildings.

As they continue their journey, the Landmaster develops a problem with its drivetrain near Detroit. Denton comments that it was "designed to use spare truck parts", semi-trucks in particular. In Detroit they enter a large wrecking yard in search of the needed parts. A large, hemisphere-wide storm comes upon the group and they take shelter in their vehicle just as a megatsunami washes them away. After the storm passes, they are adrift in a large body of water and it appears that the Earth has returned to its normal axis as the sky is clear.

Using the Landmaster's amphibious capability, they reach land. As they are making repairs, they hear a radio broadcast of music and an attempt to reach survivors. After Denton makes radio contact, Tanner and Billy set out on Tanner's dirt bike to locate the source of the broadcast. In the final scene, they reach a surprisingly intact suburb of Albany, New York, where they are greeted by its inhabitants.

Wannabe moviemaker ‘BAMBI’ has just spent her last lump of cash on her film's main prop, a big red beast of an American muscle car. Her obsession turns B-Grade when she discovers a way to run the car on BLOOD. Bambi's unholy spiral into insanity begins using Voodoo she sacrifices her cast one by one needing their blood and their souls. With an OX HEART bolted to the engine it becomes the car's beating ‘heart-muscle’. Now there's no stopping Bambi or her MUSCLECAR.

The miniseries is an adaptation of ''The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red'' (2001), written by Ridley Pearson under the pseudonym Joyce Reardon, PhD. Pearson's novel was based on the script of ''Stephen King's Rose Red''.

The plot revolves around the construction of the Rimbauer mansion, Rose Red, in Seattle, Washington, tracing a series of mysterious accidents throughout the mansion's early history which cause it to become cursed. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the stately, sinister mansion is constructed by powerful Seattle oil magnate John Rimbauer (Steven Brand) as a wedding present for his timid, submissive young bride, Ellen (Lisa Brenner). Rimbauer uses much of his wealth to build the mansion in the Tudor neo-Gothic style and situate it on of woodland. The site has been a Native American burial ground. The house appeared cursed even as it was being constructed: three construction workers are killed on the site, and a construction foreman is murdered by a co-worker.

Shortly after her marriage to Rimbauer, Ellen begins keeping a diary in which she confesses her anxieties about her new marriage, expresses her confusion over her emerging sexuality, and contemplates the nightmare that her life is becoming. Ellen soon has two children which helps soothe her painful relationship with her husband. First, a boy named Adam, and then a girl (born with a deformed withered arm) named April. At first impressed by her husband's extravagance, Ellen eventually hates and fears John, especially when learning unsavory facts about his past. Meanwhile, the number of individual hauntings in the mansion increases, possibly including ghosts of the many people close to John who have mysteriously vanished. Ellen interprets the eerie manifestations as a warning that she, too, may some day disappear without a trace.

Years after her young daughter April also vanishes inside the estate, Ellen and her maid and confidant Sukeena still continue to live in the house. After John's death, Ellen believes that if she continues to build the house, she will never die. She uses nearly all of her inherited fortune to continually add to the home over the next several decades, enlarging it significantly. Rose Red begins growing by itself, adding new hallways, new corridors, new rooms and new staircases seemingly overnight. But mysterious disappearances continue: Deanna Petrie, a famous actress friend of Ellen's, and Sukeena both disappear over the next few years. Ellen herself disappears in 1950, never to be seen again.

The central focus on the program is the child actors who are aged between 4 and 10 years.Australian Children's Television Foundation, (1991). Australian Children's Television Foundation Annual Report 1990-1991. A.C.T.F. Productions Limited. Coming from different cultural, social, and familial backgrounds, the small group of seven children approach their environment with a sense of adventure, fantasy and inquiry. These children feature in the drama elements of the program but are the departure point for all other elements of the program.

Lift Off's heart is its characters: children, adults, puppets, performers-live and animated. Central to Lift Off is the activity of a core group of children. Their play, interactions and inquires from the idea or theme around which each episode revolves. The parents of the main characters are seen in every episode and their interactions reflect a variety of family situations.

The other fantasy characters in Lift Off include: EC-a rag doll, a puppet, a confidante, a friend.

Another of the main characters in the program is a lift called Lotis. Based in the apartment building where two of the families live, Lotis is, to the adult observer, a normal, everyday lift. It takes people to the desired floor, greets them vocally and frustrates them occasionally with its unreliability. To the children, however, Lotis is a friend, a mentor and a fellow explorer of their world. Lotis is an artificial intelligence. She has a computer matrix screen on her back wall on which appear clues, questions, diagrams and games. She is able to take them anywhere in space or time and will sometimes open her doors on the surface of the moon, the beach or the bottom of the ocean.

There are other puppets in Lift Off. Rocky, the frill-necked lizard is an anthropologist and documentary cameraman who is seen fleetingly on location gathering material about the human characters in the program. His humorous documentary films are shown to an audience of frill-necked lizards towards the end of each episode and reflect on the folly of the "two-footers".

The backsacks are another species of regular puppet characters. Travelling on the backs of the children, these limbless eccentrics have a very different outlook on life, primarily because they spend their lives being thrown on the ground, hung on pegs, stuffed full of structure and their attitude to their owners. They are unrecognised workers of the puppet world.

Beverley and her Patches sit in the foyer of the building where most of the children live.Australian Children's Television Foundation, (1992). Australian Children's Television Foundation Annual Report 1991-1992. A.C.T.F. Productions Limited. There is no ordinary pot-she contains a very long stalk with an eye on the end of it that surveys the world. This is the link with the natural environment-through her eye we see the world.

The Patches have lives of their own. They can break away from the pot and become animated shapes which form and reform together to create other shapes or move to certain rhythms before jumping back onto the pot.

There are documentary segments which present specific skills. These might involve acrobats, gymnasts or dressage events-they model a range of skills which intrigue and challenge children.

Segments

The two main animation segments are "The Munch Kids" and the animated "Feature Story". "The Munch Kids" is a three-minute segment featuring edited discussions with children who tackle topics related to the episode theme. The resulting voice track is presented to animators who visually interpret aspects of the discussion.

''Lift Off'' features a major puppet segment titled "The Wakadoo Café". Directed by Paul Nichola, written by Bob Ellis, Tony Watts and Nancy Black, the café is a dynamic busy social hub filled with fascinating characters and unusual guests. The drama is broken occasionally by performances of all kinds by guest artists, musicians and performers.

''Lift Off'' features a wide range of documentary material, including original footage of Aboriginal children shot in Arnhem Land by Stephen Johnson showing children in skilled activities as well as at play. It also shows different environments, worlds, peoples, animals and plants. The world is presented to the children as an accessible and exciting environment, requiring understanding and care.

The beautiful Marya "Mado" Zelli (Isabelle Adjani) is living with her husband Stephan (Anthony Higgins), a Polish art dealer, in 1927 Paris. When he is convicted of selling stolen artwork, and imprisoned for one year, Marya is left penniless, with no means to support herself. At Stephan's urging, she moves into the apartment of some acquaintances, H.J. Heidler (Alan Bates), a wealthy English art dealer, and his wife Lois (Maggie Smith), a painter. H.J. has a history of inviting vulnerable young women to move into the "spare room" only to seduce them. Lois permits this arrangement because she wants to keep H.J. from leaving her.

Marya becomes involved in the decadent Parisien lifestyle of the Heidlers and their group of fellow expatriates. Although she initially resists H.J.'s advances, Mado eventually begins an affair with him. The strain of living with the Heidlers begins to manifest itself; Marya becomes desperate to leave, and begs Lois to loan her money so she can get away. Lois, although extremely unhappy with the situation, is reluctant to interfere at the risk of alienating H.J. Her behavior towards Marya is increasingly passive-aggressive and insulting. During a hunting excursion to the countryside, Marya angrily confronts the pair, causing Lois to break down in anguish.

After this H.J. arranges for Marya to live in a hotel, where he visits her less and less for sexual trysts. She grows lonely and depressed, contemplating suicide. During a tea party at the Heidlers', Lois casually reveals that H.J.'s previous mistress drowned herself in despair. When things are at their worst, Stephan is released from prison and must leave France immediately. Heidler threatens to break with her entirely if she returns to her husband, and although Marya has longed to be re-united with Stephan, she is unable to choose between the two. Stephan realizes the truth, and the film ends with him abandoning Marya to an uncertain future.

''columbinus'' includes excerpts from discussions with parents, survivors and community leaders in Littleton as well as diaries and home video footage to reveal what it refers to as "the dark recesses of American adolescence".

The first act of the play is set in a stereotypical, fictional American high school and follows the lives and struggles of eight teenage archetypes. These characters are not given names but labels, and the two outcast friends designated in the script as "Freak" and "Loner" are slowly driven to crime and madness by the bullying from their classmates. In the first scene of act two, these boys become Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold when the actors playing Freak and Loner, respectively, approach two tables with objects relating to the massacre and change into replicas of the clothing the perpetrators wore; the perpetrators' senior photos are projected on a screen behind them. The scenes following this are taken from the perpetrators' videos and personal journals, illustrating the days approaching and including the shootings and the suspects' suicides.

The newly added act three has the other cast members become survivors and townspeople who reflect on the events, including the cover up of information surrounding the suspects. The play briefly touches on modern shootings such as the incidents at Aurora or Newtown. A few productions have included a brief scene discussing the story of the Columbine survivor who wrote to Mike Judge about "Wings of the Dope," an episode of ''King of the Hill'' which she credited with enabling her to grieve a boy she never got to tell she loved, who turned out to be one of the perpetrators (resulting in her being pressured to repress her grief).

Samson is chosen by God to destroy the Philistines, who have occupied the land of Canaan. He is given the greatest strength ever known to man as long as he remains true to his vow and its conditions, yet he still is not convinced of his purpose, preferring instead to spend his time with Philistine company. He eventually falls in love with a Philistine girl, decides to marry her, but is betrayed by her on his wedding day. He soon learns she was blackmailed by the Philistine lords who are plotting his demise, and goes to reclaim her, but she has been murdered along with her entire family.

Meanwhile, a treacherous courtesan of the king, Delilah, is convinced of her ability to bring even the mighty Samson to his knees. She appeals to Samson as a beautiful woman, and Samson is immediately taken with her. They begin the relationship of two passionate lovers, and Delilah convinces Samson of her love, ultimately seducing him into telling her the secret of his strength. Samson is thus at last captured by the Philistines, who blind him and make him into a slave, forcing him to grind grain at a millstone. At the celebration of his and his kingdom's defeat, he is brought in chains to be both an example and entertainment to his captors. Unbeknownst to them, his strength has returned, and as he stands between the two pillars that support the building, he asks God for forgiveness. He then pushes against the pillars, collapsing the building and killing those inside, including himself. Delilah, who was present in the temple, also dies as well. As often in film and movies Delilah is portrayed as weak and unwise but not evil and apparently genuinely in love with Samson.

Paul (Peter Paige), a childlike artist, becomes upset when his godson's family moves from Oregon to Japan. Paul tries to compensate for his feeling of loss with visits to the neighborhood playground.

Paul's best friend Russell (Anthony Clark) tries to warn him what people might think if they see him hanging around their kids, but Paul doesn't quite see it that way.

As Russell predicted, soon Maggie (Kathy Najimy), a somewhat bigoted local mom, launches a crusade against the naive Paul, with an army of furious parents in town.

Bugs Bunny is taking his morning shower under a waterfall when the water stops flowing. The source of the problem turns out to be the villainous Blacque Jacque Shellacque, who has built an illegal rock dam in an effort to control the water supply and sell it at inflated prices. Bugs tricks Jacque into removing a tiny rock, at the dam's base, which then dislodges the dam. Shellacque builds a series of dams, each one bigger than the last, with Bugs destroying them all. Finally, Bugs turns the tables and builds a dam of his own. Their roles reverse as Shellacque destroys dam after dam, ending with his being arrested for attempting to destroy the "Grand Cooler Dam" (a pun on "Grand Coulee Dam").

Scientist Doug Fartin (who insists that his name is pronounced “Far-''tan''”) is in charge of Operation Manhole, a project to eliminate all homosexuals in the military by luring them to a specific spot and then dropping a bomb on them. The bomb, however, misses its target and instead obliterates part of the nearby town of Inbred, Texas. The plane is then struck by an invisible force and crashes to earth, and its occupants—Dr. Fartin and the pilot—are presumed dead.

Fartin, however, was saved from the plane by extraterrestrials with bulging eyeballs, who then performed an operation on him. Fartin wanders back to the military base the next day, with no memory of how he survived the plane crash, and is beginning to exhibit stereotypically gay behavior (e.g., he keeps using the word “fabulous”).

Base commander Colonel Butz and surgeon Major Problemo talk to Doug's wife, Vagina, about her husband's new behavior; if she can't turn him back into “a real man,” he'll be included in the next bombing. She tries her best to sexually arouse him, but he can only have sex with her while imagining that she's Ted Kennedy.

The next day, Doug Fartin—whose security clearance has been revoked because of his new gayness—steals a piece of paper from a vault in Butz's office. Upon hearing of this, FBI agent Priggs tries to figure out what was stolen, which isn't easy because the vault is highly disorganized and mostly filled with take-out menus. Priggs discovers a handful of marijuana on the floor in front of the vault, and immediately recognizes it as part of Fartin's stash.

Doug arrives at Sodom Flats with the paper, but is caught and confronted by Priggs. Doug punches Priggs out and tries to escape in his car, but a hallucination of bulging eyeballs causes him to run off the road and crash. Regaining consciousness in the base infirmary, Fartin remembers what happened to him after the plane went down, and tells his story to Butz and the others:

The aliens, who are from Uranus (“an all-gay planet”), have been the ones responsible for creating homosexuals on Earth and other planets. Over the centuries, they've monitored these planets and tried to snuff out homophobia. The last time they’d visited Earth was during World War II, when their agents abducted Adolf Hitler and turned him into a cross-dressing lounge singer on another planet; the Germans set up an imposter in Hitler's place, but when the imposter ordered the invasion of Russia, the aliens knew that Nazi Germany was doomed, so they left.

Now the aliens have returned, with a new mission: to build a machine whose transmissions will cause everyone on Earth to become homosexual. They had ordered Fartin to return to the military base, steal from the vault the bottom half of page 32 from the original manuscript of ''Giovanni's Room'', and bring it to the aliens’ subterranean headquarters at Sodom Flats. Fartin rightly concluded that there's something on the paper that the aliens needed to complete their machine and refused to cooperate, but the alien leader—the Super-Homo—hypnotized Doug to ensure his complicity.

After hearing Fartin's story, Butz and his associates aren't sure about Doug's sanity. Later, Sheriff Mussolino of Inbred (who's been turned into a bulging-eyed agent of the aliens) materializes in Fartin's room and tells him that the aliens now need a power source for their machine; Fartin, who is now convinced that helping the aliens is the right thing to do, goes to the nearby power station and orders the technician, at gunpoint, to move certain levers and switches (one of which causes the camera filming this movie to temporarily falter). Butz, Problemo, Priggs, Vagina, and others try to stop Doug, but they're too late; everyone looks out the window and witnesses a huge explosion, the radiation from which changes the sexuality of everyone on Earth, turning straight people gay and gay people—such as Doug Fartin—straight.

Presented primarily in the style of twelve-bar blues, the short opens with a display of the book that shows the Three Little Pigs who used to play pipes and dance jigs. The short then focuses to the present day and reveals the pigs now play modern instruments and perform as The Three Little Bops.

During a gig at the House of Straw, the Big Bad Wolf appears and proves he is friendly by stating that he wants to sit in with the band. The Wolf happens to be terrible at playing his choice of instrument (a trumpet) so the pigs throw him out. Feeling insulted, the Wolf retaliates by blowing down the straw house using his trumpet, forcing the pigs to go to the Dew Drop Inn, the House of Sticks.

Things go well (including the piano playing pig doing an imitation of Liberace's "I wish my brother George was here"), until the Wolf comes in and attempts to play his trumpet again. Like the pigs, the people watching also think the wolf's playing is corny, so they call for the pigs to "throw the square out", which they do. Again, the Wolf retaliates by blowing down the Dew Drop Inn. The pigs then realize that to escape the Wolf's "windy tricks," they will go to the House of Bricks (built on May 1, 1776, according to a cornerstone).

The House of Bricks has a "No Wolves Allowed" rule, so when the Wolf tries to get in, he is punched in the face by a bouncer. Then he tries to ram the door down with a log but with no success. The Wolf runs out of breath in trying to blow away the club, but thinks he can get in by disguising himself. He reenters in fur coat and ukulele with his perfect rendition of the Charleston song (cut short by slipping on a strategically thrown banana peel). He returns in the disguise of a houseplant with his trumpet but gets blasted outside by a plunger shot from the double bass. For his third try, the Wolf shows up in a drum major outfit playing a big bass drum to the tune of "Don't Give Up the Ship". A dart is shot into the drum to deflate it, leaving him to exit in humiliation before the pigs shut and lock the door to ensure he can't get in again.

Not the least bit deterred, he shows up with a large cylinder of TNT and snaps, "I'll show those pigs that I'm not stuck! If I can't blow it ''down,'' I'll blow it ''up!"'' The fuse is blown out on his first try, so he steps back a bit and lights it from there. Unfortunately for him, he is too far away and his weapon explodes while he is carrying it to his target, killing the Big Bad Wolf.

The narrator reveals that the explosion did not send the Wolf to Heaven but down to "''the other place''", where his trumpet playing improves. When the pigs hear this, one of them says, "The Big Bad Wolf, he learned the rule: you gotta get hot to play real cool!" The Wolf's spirit then rises up through the floor and, now playing expertly, joins in for the final notes prompting one of the pigs to alter their band's name to "The Three Little Bops Plus One".

The series' story arcs are self-contained and focus on different characters, but these central characters inhabit the same world, grew up in fictional Center City, frequent the same bar, and share a common history of two generations of crime. With his partner Ivan, Tommy Patterson ran the city's most proficient crew of pickpockets and taught the trade to his eight-year-old son, Leo. When Tommy was arrested and imprisoned for the murder of Teeg Lawless, Ivan took care of Leo and explained to him how following certain rules can keep a criminal "out in the world", out of both prison and the morgue.

Around the same time, Teeg Lawless' two sons were arrested. While his fifteen-year-old brother Ricky was sent to a juvenile work camp, Tracy Lawless was given the option of going to prison or enlisting in the armed forces. Tracy joined the U.S. Army, abandoning Ricky but honing his skills as a soldier.

An away-team of Deep Space Nine crew, led by Captain Benjamin Sisko, are conducting a mineral survey on an uninhabited Gamma Quadrant planet, while their runabout awaits them in orbit. A Dominion warship crashes near their location; investigating, they find the crew dead. Sisko contacts DS9 to have the ''USS Defiant'' come tow the ship back to the station so that it can be studied.

Another Dominion ship arrives, destroys the runabout and its crew, and transports a number of Jem'Hadar soldiers to the surface along with their Vorta supervisor, Kilana. The soldiers fire on the away-team, killing one and wounding Muñiz, an assistant to chief engineer O'Brien. Sisko's crew flees into the crashed ship for protection. Muñiz begins slowly bleeding to death as a result of his injury.

Kilana meets with Sisko, offering to return the away team safely to DS9 if they yield the ship. Meanwhile, a Jem'Hadar transports onto the crashed ship and attacks the team; Muñiz, though weakened, is able to shoot the Jem'Hadar. Kilana and Sisko immediately return to their ships. Sisko deduces that there is something valuable aboard that they are unwilling to risk damaging in a direct attack. He rejects a new offer from Kilana to allow Sisko to keep the ship if he permits the Jem'Hadar to retrieve an item from it.

O'Brien tries to assure a now delirious Muñiz that he will live, but Lt. Cmdr Worf asserts that Muñiz should be prepared for death. Tempers flare and a fight almost breaks out. Sisko sternly orders the crew to pull themselves together. O'Brien's attempt to bring the ship's engines online fails, and Muñiz dies.

The ship's precious cargo finally reveals itself: a dying Changeling, one of the Founders of the Dominion whom the Jem'Hadar and Vorta revere as gods. After it dies, Kilana transports to the vessel. She explains that her Jem'Hadar have committed suicide for allowing the death of a Founder, and there is no further reason to prevent Starfleet from salvaging the ship. Sisko allows her to collect some of the Changeling's remains before she leaves.

The ''Defiant'' eventually arrives and tows the ship back to DS9. O'Brien and Worf hold a vigil over Muñiz's casket. Sisko tries to write a report for Starfleet, but keeps lingering on the five crewmen who died on the mission. Despite knowing the ship's recovery could save thousands of lives, Sisko still feels they deserved more than to die on an isolated planet so far from home.

Ashley Black is depressed because her father Jack spends all his time focusing on his job instead of her and her older brother Joshua. She constantly records his radio show and listens to it. One day, her father takes them to a remote Canadian lake that was popular with tourists due to a myth about an aquatic monster named Orky. They rented a cabin next to an elderly First Nations man who uses a wheelchair. Jack meets a local psychiatrist, Dr. Wanda Bell, who is trying to aid some local men who claim that they have been possessed by Orky. When Ashley runs away, Jack also has the same experience while looking for her. As a result, he becomes more devoted to his children.

Ashley and Joshua find out that the reason that Orky is possessing people is to try and tell them that he is dying because a businessman is dumping toxic waste into the lake. Ashley and Joshua help the old man in the cabin next to theirs to find a totem pole in the woods. With the help of Hiro, the son of Japanese monster seekers, they expose the businessman's illegal dumping. Orky, however, still dies from the poisonous waste. The old man summons a lightning bolt which enters a hole in the cave where Orky lives. Ashley and Hiro stay on the dock overnight and leave some cookies out. When she realizes that the cookies have been eaten, Ashley screams with joy which suggests that Orky is still alive, or reincarnated.

The film opens in 1923 with studio executive Frank N. Thayer (Eion Bailey) receiving a letter in the mail, alongside a medallion of the Virgin Mary.

The film then shifts to the height of the Mexican Revolution. Pancho Villa (Antonio Banderas) finds himself without adequate funding to finance his war against the military-run government. He also finds himself at odds with the Americans because of the Hearst media empire's press campaign against him. To counter both of these threats, he sends emissaries to movie producers to convince them to pay to film his progress and the actual battles. Producer D.W. Griffith (Colm Feore) is immediately interested and convinces Mutual Film Studios boss Harry E. Aitkin (Jim Broadbent) to send a film crew. As Aitkin's nephew, Thayer is initially a mere errand boy for the studio, but he makes a good impression with Villa, who demands that Thayer be placed in charge of the project. Thayer and a camera crew team film Villa leading his men to victory in battle. Despite the failure of this initial footage (which draws derisive laughter from potential backers) Thayer convinces Aitkin to invest even more money in a second attempt, and also convinces Villa to participate in making a more narrative film.

Thayer returns to Mexico with a director, actors, producers, cameramen and screenwriters, and begin to film Villa's previous exploits using a younger actor, future film director Raoul Walsh (Kyle Chandler). The filming goes well, although Villa becomes angry that the screenwriters and the director have changed history to make a more dramatic film. However, he agrees to do a cameo appearance as an older version of himself. Meanwhile, Thayer begins a romance with actress Teddy Sampson (Alexa Davalos). He also is assigned two young child soldiers as editing assistants. One night Villa announces that they will attack a Federal held fort at Torreon and win the revolution. The film's director and his crew tell Villa that they are not coming with him to film the battle. Villa scares them into going to the battle by having a firing squad shoot over their heads.

The next morning, Villa assembles his men to attack Torreon. Thayer and his team go in to film the action. A skirmish on the way to the fort occurs, with Villa's army repelling the Federales, though one of Thayer's assistants loses his life. Villa's army arrives at Torreon and lays siege to the fortress. Villa orders an attack and personally leads the charge. Villa's army is initially successful, but they suffer heavy casualties and are forced to withdraw. That night, Villa orders his army to bombard Torreon into submission, and, after a long, brutal bombardment, Villa's cavalry finishes off the last of Torreon's Federal defenders. However, Thayer and his camera crew team witness Villa personally shooting a Mexican widow in cold blood with his handgun during the aftermath of the battle. Disgusted, the team leaves.

''The Life of General Villa'' is shown in theaters in America, and to great success, although Thayer and his camera crew members regret making the film. Thayer is also dismayed to find out that Teddy, who is attending the premiere, has broken off their romance. Nine years later, Villa is assassinated en route in a town square.

Back in America, Thayer meets with Villa Army veteran Sam Dreben (Alan Arkin) in a restaurant. Having lost an eye and arm during the Revolution, he laments at the current Mexican government being no better than Huerta's. He is equally displeased that Thayer did not gift Villa with a copy of the film as promised. The movie then returns to Thayer in his office, where he reads the letter. It is from his surviving assistant, who has since grown to manhood, married, and has a child with Villa as a godfather. The letter inspires Thayer to return to Mexico in order to screen the film, where it is met with a passionate audience who cheer at Villa's ending speech.

Thayer then goes on to narrate that Villa has since been reinterred in Mexico City to great fanfare, while the film has since become lost. He also states that he himself has become a footnote in history, though he "does not mind being a footnote to a legend."

Emery Simms is a highly educated business tycoon whose life takes a turn for the worse when he engages in an adulterous fling with the wildly free-spirited and exotic Allanah James. Emery accidentally kills a man who tries to get information out of him, which is then witnessed by another man who flees. Emery does not notice the dead man's cell phone, which has all their calls logged in.

He then makes a phone call to his friend who does not answer. Later, he meets Allanah whose car has broken down. He gives her a ride to her job unaware she is working an angle to get what she wants. He then calls her and insists they have dinner. They do, but the police follow them, seeing them make out as does another man that is following Allanah. The crazed man comes to the restaurant and attacks Emery.

Emery goes to see Allanah and sees that the place she lives in is unsatisfactory, so he takes her to one of his properties - a condo. She makes herself at home and even invites a friend over, who tells her that she can keep the condo and lifestyle if there "is a hole in the condom". Emery drops by for sex and she has her friend wait outside so she can do what she needs to with Emery. Allanah's friend ends up joining them.

Emery then visits his friend Brandon Collier, gives him a box cutter and tells him to help him unpack. The two reminisce about the fun times they had in college. Allanah meets Emery in a park where children are playing and announces she is pregnant. Shocked, Emery tells her to abort the baby, but Allanah tells him no.

She then sets up a meeting with Connie, Emery's wife, sending her a romantic note, which Connie thinks is from Emery. When Connie arrives at a park where the meeting is to take place she finds a beautifully dressed table with flowers and a bottled of chilled wine waiting. Allanah then appears and the two women sit down for a chat.

Allanah tells Connie she is pregnant with Emery's child and asks her for money. Connie gives her a check for $100,000 then returns home to pack her bags to leave Emery. When Emery walks in the two get into an argument over Allanah, her pregnancy and the pay off. In the meantime, Allanah returns to the condo where her husband, Derrick Woods, shows up demanding money. Emery soon follows to confront her about the meeting with Connie, and finds Allanah and Derrick having sex. He tells them both to leave and demands that Allanah give back the check. Derrick goes ballistic on Allanah upon finding out what she did, as Emery searches her purse for the check. Emery hurls an insult at Derrick and the two fight. In the struggle, Emery drops the check, Allanah picks it up then flees the condo very much alive.

Allanah soon turns up dead, her throat cut. Emery is asked to come to the police station and is interrogated by Detective Morgan about Allanah's murder.

Emery insists that when he left the condo Allanah was alive, just as Derrick insists the same in his interrogation. They are both released upon investigation of the murder. Connie returns to Emery, but still doesn't trust him.

While she is home, Emery goes in search of pictures taken of him having sex with Allanah in his car, but cannot find them. The movie fast forwards to an event for wayward youth, where Connie is giving a speech. During the speech, Emery is arrested for Allanah's murder.

Before this happened, he goes to see Brandon who tells him that he wants Connie and his life. The two fight, Emery stops, leaving Brandon alive. After Emery is sentenced and sent to prison, Connie visits him and presents him with divorce papers, forcing him to sign them. Reluctantly, he does. Connie then gets up and walks away as Emery screams for her to come back.

As Emery is being led back to his cell, he sees Connie walks to Brandon. She looks back at him as the two embrace and with a smug look Brandon stares intently at Emery. In Emery's flashback, the viewer sees and reveals that it was Brandon who set him and Allanah up, murdered her, and sent a box of evidence to Detectives Pierce and Morgan all in an attempt to get Connie all to himself. Emery, in a fit of rage, then attempts to attack Brandon, but security guards hold him back. Yelling to Connie that it was Brandon who was the cause of everything that has happened, Connie walks out the door. Brandon winks at Emery and leaves as he's being dragged back to his cell, still yelling for Connie to return. The film ends with credits revealing that Emery is currently awaiting for an appeal for the murders of Allanah James and Kenneth Stroud.

Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield) works as a short order cook on a space station somewhere in the galaxy. Overwhelmed by the volume of orders, he repeatedly fouls up and soon finds himself in a confrontation with an alien patron named Vang. After a fight which smashes up the diner and leaves the alien injured, Steve and his friend and co-worker Shorty (Hamilton Camp) are fired. As it turns out, Vang is an Arena fighter, and his manager Quinn (Claudia Christian) confronts Steve. Amazed that a human could beat one of her best fighters, Quinn offers him a contract, but convinced that humans no longer have a place in the Arena, Steve refuses, intending to make his way back to Earth.

Lacking sufficient money for a ticket, Shorty attempts to raise the cash by gambling in an underground casino. The game is raided by the authorities and in the confusion, Shorty pockets the money. Caught in the act by crime boss and top Arena fight manager Rogor (Marc Alaimo) and his enforcer Weezil (Armin Shimerman), Shorty is held for ransom. Steve promises to pay off the debt, so he reluctantly returns to Quinn and agrees to a contract with her, using the money to free Shorty. Remarkably Steve wins his first match with an alien named Sloth in an upset. After seeing Steve's potential, Rogor attempts to contract Steve as his Arena fighter but learns Steve has already signed with Quinn. Steve continues fighting, determined to prove that a human has what it takes to be champion, and soon becomes a top contender.

Rogor becomes worried that his high position in Arena fighting could be jeopardized if Steve wins the championship, so he enlists his consort Jade (Shari Shattuck) to seduce Steve and poison him the night before the championship fight with Rogor's top fighter, an alien cyborg named Horn (Michael Deak). But medics are able to counteract the poison minutes before the fight, and Steve appears in the Arena surprising Rogor and Jade. Rogor then resorts to Weezil's plan of hacking into the computer controlling the handicap technology used to ensure fair fights. Weezil's accomplice, Skull (William Butler), successfully interfaces with the computer located in the catwalk high above the Arena and gains control of the handicap, causing Steve to be severely impaired during the second round of the fight with Horn. Shorty quickly suspects foul play and leaves to investigate, finding Weezil and Skull in the computer room. While fighting off Weezil, Shorty damages part of the computer which in turn causes Skull's head to explode. With the handicap computer offline Steve regains his full abilities and ultimately defeats Horn, becoming the first human champion in one thousand years.

The plot revolves around a series of murders that take place over two years in the Nevada Desert near Groom Lake.

The movie opens with a woman being chased through the desert by an unseen creature, but then she wakes up revealing it to be a nightmare.

Traci and her boyfriend Gibson are driving across the desert at night. Gibson keeps talking about Area 51, but Traci is only interested in reaching Las Vegas. In order to get Gibson to shut up and keep driving, Traci takes her top off and straddles his lap. Because of her distraction he runs over something, blowing out a tire. Gibson stops to change the tire, but immediately vanishes when he gets out of the car. Traci searches for him, but only finds a bloody tire iron. She runs back to the car, lights a cigarette and drives away. However, she soon has an accident and is trapped by the seatbelt. The monster picks up her cigarette outside the car and ignites the gasoline leaking from the car, setting it and Traci on fire.

Several people are attacked at a small carnival, by an alien. This draws the attention of Dr. Cleo Browning (Phoebe Falconer).

Dr. Browning discusses killing the creature with Sheriff Sam Cash (Sean Galuszka), but she is overheard by animal rights activist Roxanne, and her boyfriend Albert. Roxanne thinks that if they capture the alien they can expose to the world what the government is doing to animals. In the meantime, three of the carnival workers set out to capture the alien and add it to the sideshow.

Cash and Dr. Browning meet with Cletus (Matthew Christopher). He speculates that the alien is living in a cave in the mountains. While the two are meeting with Cletus, Roxanne attempts to slash the sheriff's tires, sending Albert to act as a lookout. Unable to cut the tires, she looks for Albert, but is unable to find him. Eventually, when she discovers his body, she screams and starts to run, but she also killed by the alien.

The next day, Dr. Browning and Cash search for the alien. They find its "home" in a small tunnel. Cash lowers Dr. Browning into the tunnel by rope. Browning finds the alien's child and sends it back up to Cash. The three carnival workers sneak up and hold a gun to Cash's head, demanding the alien child. He gives it to them and they throw him into the tunnel.

Cash and Browning escape and return to the carnival. They interrupt the sideshow and take the alien child back. They attempt to drive away but one of the workers shoots out one of their tires. The carnies then lure Dr. Browning near the "Mother" alien, who had just arrived. She is attacked by the alien but is able to fight back. One of the carnies, fighting with Cash, shoot him. Dr. Browning, stabs the alien while fighting it and the creature collapses. As the doctor is walking away a woman carney asks if the alien is dead and she says it is. As the carney bends over the alien it leaps up and kills her.

David Mingolla is an artillery specialist in the United States Army serving in a near-future Central American war (references are made to then-future "Afghanistan in '89" and a nuclear weapon that destroyed Tel Aviv). As his unit serves in "Free Occupied Guatemala", Mingolla goes on leave and meets a woman named ''Debora'' in a cantina. They gradually become lovers; however, as they get close to each other, Mingolla feels intense mental pain later identified as a psychic probing his mind.

Soon after this, Mingolla is recruited into the Psicorps, an elite group of psychics the United States has assembled to counter the Soviet Union's own. Debora, a veteran of the revolt that led to American intervention in the first place, is designated his target. On his way through Psicorps training to refine his mental abilities, Mingolla learns that this front of the ongoing Cold War, as well as the war itself, is a manipulation by two Panamanian families, the Madradonas and the Sotomayors, over three centuries to increase psychic potential in humanity as well as their own genetic diversity.

Mingolla and Debora meet and part several times before their meeting with the Madradonas and Sotomayors in Darién, Panama and become embroiled with the members of Mingolla's former squad in a firefight which culminates in the nuclear destruction of Panama City. David and Debora leave the city and their former friends and antagonists behind them, deciding that ultimately what matters is their love for one another, the only item that has not been blatantly manipulated.

The fictional work excerpted several times in the novel, Juan Pastorín's short story collection ''The Fictive Boarding House'', gives clues to the nature of the novel and Mingolla's experiences himself in a type of foreshadowing. The lyrics of ''Prowler'' heard or sung or thought among members of Mingolla's unit which bookend ''Life during Wartime'' serve this function as well. As a nod to science fiction author Philip K. Dick's work, the text itself does not present a clear or objective account of what truly happened to Mingolla or what was hallucination on his part. (At one point on Mingolla's journey, an AI combining a downed Sikorsky helicopter and a long-range guided missile imparts "revelation" to him.) PsiCorps' intensive drug therapy to hone Mingolla's potential as well as the presence and use of "Sammy" (short for ''Samurai'', an intense stimulant) and Frost, a super-addictive version of cocaine, make the third person point of view essential for this novel.

Adso of Melk recounts how, in 1327, as a young Franciscan novice, he and his mentor, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, traveled to a Benedictine abbey in northern Italy where the Franciscans were to debate with papal emissaries the poverty of Christ. The abbey boasts a famed scriptorium where scribes copy, translate or illuminate books. The monk Adelmo of Otranto —a young but famous manuscript illuminator— was suspiciously found dead on a hillside below a tower with only a window that could not be opened. The abbot seeks help from William, who is renowned for his deductive powers. William is reluctantly drawn in by the intellectual challenge and his desire to disprove fears of a demonic culprit. William also worries the abbot will summon officials of the Inquisition if the mystery remains unsolved.

William quickly deduces that Adelmo committed suicide, having jumped from a nearby tower having a window, and that the slope of the hill caused the body to roll below the other tower. William's solution briefly allays the monks' fears, until another Monk is found dead, ominously floating in a vat of pig's blood. The victim is Venantius, a translator of Greek and the last man to speak with Adelmo. The corpse bears black stains on a finger and the tongue. The translator's death rekindles the monks' fears of a supernatural culprit, fears reinforced when the saintly Fransciscan friar Ubertino of Casale warns that the deaths resemble signs mentioned in the Book of Revelation. In the scriptorium, William inspects Adelmo's desk, but is blocked by Brother Berengar, the assistant librarian. Brother Malachia, the head librarian, denies William access to the rest of the building.

William encounters Salvatore, a demented hunchback, and his protector, Remigio da Varagine, the cellarer. William deduces that both were Dulcinites, members of a heretical, militant sect that believes that clergy should be impoverished. William does not suspect them of murder though because Dulcinites target wealthy bishops, not poor monks. Nevertheless, Remigio's past gives William leverage in learning the abbey's secrets. Salvatore tells William that Adelmo had crossed paths with Venantius on the night that Adelmo died. Meanwhile, Adso encounters a beautiful, semi-feral, peasant girl who has sneaked into the abbey to trade sexual favors for food, and is seduced by her.

Returning that night to Venantius's desk, William finds a book in Greek, and a parchment with Greek writing, smudges of a color blended by Adelmo for illuminating books, and cryptic symbols written by a left-handed man using invisible ink. Berengar sneaks into the darkened scriptorium, distracts William and steals the book.

Berengar is later found drowned in a bath and bearing stains similar to those on Venantius. William narrates his conclusions that Adelmo's death was indeed suicide, due to giving in to Berengar's requests for homosexual favors. Venantius received a parchment from Adelmo before Adelmo's death, and Berengar is the only left-handed man in the abbey. William theorizes that the translator transcribed the Greek notes on the parchment from a book, and that the book is somehow responsible for the deaths. The abbot is unconvinced and, burning the parchment, he informs William that the Inquisition — in the person of Bernardo Gui, an old adversary of William from his former time as an inquisitor — has already been summoned.

Determined to solve the mystery before Gui arrives, William and Adso discover a vast, hidden library above the scriptorium. William suspects the abbey hid the books because much of their contents comes from pagan philosophers. Gui finds Salvatore and the peasant girl fighting over a black cockerel while in the presence of a black cat. For Gui, this is irrefutable proof of witchcraft, and he tortures Salvatore into a false confession. As both William's Franciscan brothers and the papal delegates arrive, the debate begins. The abbey's herbalist, after telling William he has found a book written in Greek in his dispensary, is murdered by another monk, who is revealed to be Malachia. The latter tricks Remigio into attempting to escape, causing him to be arrested by Gui's guards and charged with the murders.

Remigio, Salvatore and the girl are brought before a tribunal. Remembering William, Gui chooses him to join the abbot as a tribunal judge. At trial, Remigio proudly admits his Dulcinite past and, under Gui's threats of torture, also falsely confesses to the murders. William points out that the murders are tied to the Greek book, which Remigio could not read, and warns that Remigio's execution will not end the murders. Gui arranges for the prisoners to be burned at the stake, while William will be taken to Avignon. The papal delegates condemn the Franciscans for William's obstinacy and end the debate.

As the monks prepare to burn Gui's prisoners, Malachia is found dying, with black stains on his tongue and finger. Although Malachia's death vindicates William's warning, Gui takes it as proof that William is the murderer, and orders his arrest. Fleeing Gui's guards, William and Adso re-enter the secret library and come face to face with the blind Venerable Jorge, the oldest denizen of the abbey. Having decoded the lines on the translator's parchment, William demands that Jorge turn over the book that the dead men had been reading: Aristotle's ''Second Book of Poetics on Comedy''. Jorge hates laughter, thinking it undermines faith in God, and a book on laughter written by Arisotle will only bring laughter to the wise men, and undermine the faith among those of learning. To prevent that, Jorge killed those who had read the book by poisoning its pages. Jorge gives the book to William, thinking he too will suffer the poison. When William reveals that he is wearing gloves, Jorge grabs the book, then starts a blaze that quickly engulfs the library. William stays behind, trying to save some of the books and encouraging Adso to leave. Jorge kills himself by consuming the poison-coated pages.

Seeing the fire, the monks abandon the prisoners, allowing the local peasants to save the girl, though Salvatore and Remigio die. Adso chases Gui, who manages to escape him, but the peasants push his wagon off a cliff, impaling him. As William and Adso depart, Adso encounters the girl, stops for a few seconds, but eventually chooses to go with William. The much older Adso states that he never regretted his decision as he learned many more things from William before their ways parted. He also says that the girl was the only earthly love of his life, but he never learned her name.

Nancy Drew finds out that she has won a rather unusual prize in a contest, a piece of land in Canada. She takes a trip, her first outside of the United States, to see what her new property looks like.

As she is traveling by train to Canada, she meets an author named Ann Chapelle. Suddenly, the train crashes, and everything is thrown into confusion. Nancy and her two friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, are uninjured, but Chapelle is taken to a nearby hospital, gravely injured. When Nancy and her friends find her, Miss Chapelle tells Nancy the reason she was going to Canada, and asks a favor of her—to give a message to Miss Chapelle's grandfather, and to a lost love whom she hasn't seen since she ran away from home some years ago.

Along with this request, Nancy also has another problem: Two men have heard that there might be gold on Nancy's land, and are determined to get there first.

Thirty-five-year-old Jewish-American convict and junkie Butch "Bullet" Stein (Mickey Rourke) is released from prison on parole after serving an 8-year sentence for being an accomplice to a robbery, perpetrated by his friend, Irish-American gangster Paddy. After his release, Bullet and his best friend Lester (John Enos III) rob two teenagers for drugs.

He also robs drug runner Flaco (Manny Pérez) and stabs him in the eye, telling him to notify his boss Tank (Tupac Shakur) of Bullet's return. He returns to Brooklyn to live with his dysfunctional family, including his alcoholic father, depressed mother and his two brothers, the older mentally unstable Vietnam veteran Louis (Ted Levine), and his younger brother Ruby (Adrien Brody), an aspiring graffiti artist.

Tank is a local drug kingpin with a score to settle after Bullet stabbed him in the eye while they were serving time together. Bullet seems to welcome the challenge. Tank first pressures Paddy to find and deliver Bullet to him. Later, he tries to have him killed by having one of Paddy's dealers sell Bullet drugs laced with poison. This fails when the drug spot is robbed by gunmen, one of whom proceeds to stab Ruby through the hand with a knife.

Throughout the film, Bullet keeps himself occupied by shooting heroin and robbing his neighbor's house for jewelry, which he and Lester sell to an Italian-American gangster named "Frankie Eyelashes" (Larry Romano). He also encourages Ruby to follow his artistic dreams and has a deep friend-to-friend talk with Lester over Lester's potential closeted homosexuality because of his mother abandoning him and his father's passing when he was a child, but he denies it.

After the first failed attempt to kill Bullet, Tank gets one of his henchmen to start a fight with Bullet, which is witnessed by Louis and ends in a draw when the henchman breaks his hand. Paddy figures out Tank's attempt to kill Bullet and that he is trying to play him and his associates against one another. He and his henchman Big Balls (Donnie Wahlberg) confront Tank about it, proceeding to kill two of his henchmen, including High Top (Michael K. Williams).

Bullet briefly returns home and apologizes to his mother for everything he put her through over the years. He later goes to a nightclub with Ruby and Lester. Paddy tries to help him escape because Tank is on the way to kill him. Bullet then accepts his fate when he is cornered by Tank and his men and has a final showdown with Tank, who shoots him dead, horrifying Ruby.

Soon after Bullet's funeral, Louis gets revenge by sneaking up on an unsuspecting Tank as he tries to enter his club and proceeding to cut Tank's throat, killing him. Louis then leaves Bullet's pet rat (named after Tony Curtis) on the corpse, exclaiming "Payback's a motherfucker" (a line which Tank said to Bullet when he had his henchman battle Bullet). The film ends with Louis watching Bullet's rat prepare to feast on Tank's corpse.

Two alien races, the Nezom and Zerai clans obtained a powerful crystalline stone called "The Relic", and anointed themselves "The Chosen Ones". The Chosen Ones used this power to subjugate the other races, exterminating those that failed to comply. After this era of war, The Chosen Ones began to enjoy a new age of peace. However, The Relic was stolen and The Chosen Ones' power was shaken. Now, warriors from all over the universe seek the relic, each with their own ambitions.

In the Kingdom of Sesame, there is a little red monster named CinderElmo who lives with his wicked Stepmother, his Stepbrothers Telly Monster and Baby Bear, Zoe and the household dog and mice. His stepfamily has received invitations to the Princess' Ball, which leaves CinderElmo to do all the house chores.

Meanwhile, the King's town crier, Grover, reminds King Fred that Princess Charming has until midnight to find someone to marry or lose the kingdom altogether. The King decides to invite every man and monster in the kingdom. Shortly the word is sent out around the kingdom.

The Stepmother teaches her sons a new dance in preparation for the ball. Baker Cookie Monster arrives as a General Invitation Deliverer and gives CinderElmo an invitation to the ball, but the Stepmother won't permit him. When the horse and carriage arrive, she locks CinderElmo and his friends up in the house. When CinderElmo wishes upon a falling star, his Fairy God person comes and encourages CinderElmo to come up with some plan and "so something" to make his dreams come true. After CinderElmo has a wash, Fairy God person provides him and Zoe with smart clothes, turns the dog into a handsome prince, turns the dog bowl into a carriage, and the mice into horses. CinderElmo has limited time till midnight to make the best of what Fairy God person granted him.

CinderElmo, Zoe, and Prince make it to the ball. The Stepbrothers perform the dance their mother taught them and the Princess Charming joins them. Everyone else joins in the dance except CinderElmo who gets caught in the Herald's cloak. Princess Charming finds Prince and asks him to find CinderElmo, the only one who took her fancy. While Princess Charming turns down the marriage proposals of the Stepbrothers, CinderElmo and Zoe sneak past the Stepmother in a suit of armor to attend the last dance before midnight. The suit of armor tumbles and crashes, but Princess Charming gives CinderElmo the dance of his dreams. Before he can introduce himself, CinderElmo has seconds before the midnight deadline and runs off with his friends back home as the magic wears off, changing Elmo, Zoe, and Prince back to normal and leaving only a shoe behind, but Princess Charming manages to make her choice of man to marry. Now all the royal family has to do is find the one whose foot fits the shoe in order to find the princess's beloved.

After many unsuccessful tries, the royal family head to the Stepmother's house. The shoe will not fit either of the Stepbrothers. Princess Charming recognizes CinderElmo when he comes, but CinderElmo thinks he is too young to marry. Now the King has the option to change the law that legalizes marriage between the princess and CinderElmo. The Fairy God person changes Prince back to a human. Prince and the Princess take a liking to each other. The royal family invites everyone to come to the palace leaving the Stepmother and mice behind.

Setting and characters

''Ever 17'' is set in Japan, in the underwater marine theme park LeMU, 51 meters below the surface of the artificial island Insel Null. After an incident, almost half of LeMU is flooded, and the path to the surface and the communication lines are cut off, trapping the game's characters inside. In addition, LeMU is under large water pressure, limiting time to find a means of escape to 119 hours.

The player takes the roles of two characters, and sees the story from their respective perspectives: Takeshi Kuranari, a student who visited the park with his friends but got separated from them; and an amnesiac boy who does not remember his own name, and is simply called "the Kid". Among other characters are You Tanaka, a part-time employee at LeMU; Tsugumi Komachi, a woman who is distrustful of the others; Sora Akanegasaki, an artificial intelligence and the computer engineer of LeMU, who is only seen through a projection onto the other characters' eyes; Sara Matsunaga, a second-year student and a hacker; and Coco Yagami, a girl who is stranded on LeMU with her dog Pipi.

Story

The game opens on May 1, 2017, when a blackout occurs in LeMU, its communications system go down, and the park springs a leak; portions of it get flooded, blocking the exit and trapping the characters. Due to water pressure, the park is estimated to implode after 119 hours. The pressure also prevents escape by swimming, as it would crush one's lungs.

If the player plays as Takeshi, he builds a relationship with Tsugumi, who reveals that she and her pet hamster Chami are carriers of the Cure virus, which has rewritten their genetic code and halted their biological aging. She and Takeshi have sex, and she becomes pregnant. Later, Coco becomes sick. It is revealed that LeMU was created by the Leiblich Pharmaceutical company as a cover for IBF, a research facility underneath the park. IBF developed the deadly virus Tief Blau, and the LeMU disaster was caused when IBF lost containment of it. Coco was exposed to the virus while visiting her father, an IBF researcher.

The group goes to IBF in search for a cure, but starts showing signs of Tief Blau. An exception is Tsugumi, as the Cure virus has made her immune; the group injects themselves with her antibodies. They get contact with the surface, and a rescue pod is sent down, but is only able to stay for a short time. Tsugumi leaves to find Chami, who has gone missing; Takeshi chases after her, and saves Sora's data onto a disk to save her memories. Returning to IBF, they have missed the rescue vessel. They find a submarine and escape, but its batteries die; Takeshi exits it, giving it enough buoyancy to save Tsugumi, while he drowns on the ocean floor. Coco dies in IBF, as she had been looking for Pipi, and the rescue team could not find her.

If the player plays as the Kid, Sara is trapped in LeMU instead of Coco; the Kid frequently has visions of Coco, but no one else sees her. The group manages to contact the surface, and open and close doors to rooms in LeMU to move the water around, allowing them to escape.

After having played the game as both Takeshi and the Kid, the player accesses the final route, where it is revealed that although the events Takeshi experienced took place in 2017, those the Kid experienced were a recreation, and took place in a rebuilt LeMU in 2034. The You of 2017, whose full first name is Yubiseiharukana, had artificially impregnated herself and given birth to Yubiseiakikana, who took the role of You during the recreation. Pipi had escaped LeMU in 2017, carrying with it the disk with Sora's memories and footage of Coco being trapped in IBF. Sara and the Kid are revealed to be Tsugumi and Takeshi's children, and the Kid's real name turns out to be Hokuto. The Kid of 2017, whose name is Ryogo Kaburaki, played the role of Takeshi during the recreation, having stopped aging due to the Cure virus.

The recreation was done to line up two points in the fourth dimension, time, to get the attention of the person playing ''Ever 17''; the characters see the player as a 4th-dimensional being, "Blick Winkel", who can move through time; Blick Winkel appearing was what caused Hokuto's amnesia. Yubiseiharukana tells Blick Winkel that they had told her to perform the recreation to save Takeshi and Coco. Blick Winkel travels to 2017, and wakes up Takeshi on the seafloor, forcing him to swim to IBF; inside, he injects Coco with Tsugumi's antibodies. Blick Winkel warns Yubiseiharukana in 2017 to not save Takeshi and Coco immediately, to avoid a time paradox; instead, Blick Winkel has Takeshi and Coco enter cryogenic suspension in IBF. They wake up in 2034, saved. Sora, who now has a robotic body, is given back her memories from the disk, and Yubiseiharukana leaks information about Leiblich, exposing them as the ones behind the Tief Blau outbreak.

The game's events are set in the year 2877. In 2077, the world's peacekeeping unions, such as the United Nations and the European Union, collapsed after years of global tensions, forcing humanity to establish a planetary government in order to maintain order. A government operating as the '''World Silent Security Service''', also known as the '''W.S.S.S.''', is established and world peace is restored. The WSSS takes control of both the planet Earth and outer space, establishing its headquarters on the Central Control Station ''Daedalus'' in earth orbit. The WSSS eradicates the control of all previous unions and organizations and unites the whole of humanity under its control for over 800 years. However, with all of its original creators gone by that point in time, humanity questions the justification of Deadulus's rule, and some begin to rebel against the government in the wake of its so-called archaic policies. The leading rebel group in this massive rebellion, the Reformist Faction, sends three elite pilots of the highly sophisticated Laocorn-class Assault Robots on a covert mission to destroy ''Daedalus''. Once inside, two Laocorns are immediately destroyed, leaving the one survivor, the player character, to face Daedalus' massive robot armies and transverse vast, dark corridors in his quest to destroy Daedalus and to save humanity.

''Tideland'' centers on an abandoned child, Jeliza-Rose, and her solitary adventures during one summer in rural Texas while staying at a rundown farmhouse called What Rocks, and focuses on the increasingly dark, imaginative fantasy life the girl creates with the aid of dismembered Barbie doll heads that she often wears on her fingertips. With names such as Mystique, Sateen Lips, Baby Blonde and Glitter Gal, the doll heads not only engage in long conversations with Jeliza-Rose, reflecting different aspects of the girl's psyche, but also act as her companions while she explores the barren Texas landscape.

After her mother overdoses on Methadone, Jeliza-Rose and her father, Noah, flee to Noah's mother's home, a remote Texas farmhouse. Before they leave, however, Noah fears that with all the drugs in their house he will lose Jeliza-Rose and be sent to prison, so he attempts to set it alight, although Jeliza-Rose manages to stop him. They find the farmhouse abandoned, but they settle in anyway. Their first night there, Noah dies from a heroin overdose. For much of the rest of the film, Noah's corpse remains seated upright in a living room chair with sunglasses covering his eyes. As her father slowly begins to decompose, Jeliza-Rose doesn't readily acknowledge his death because she has grown accustomed to him being unconscious for long periods at a time. Instead, she retreats deeper and deeper into her own mind, exploring the tall grass around the farmhouse, relying on her doll heads for friendship as an unconscious way of keeping herself from feeling too lonely and afraid.

During Jeliza-Rose's wanderings, she eventually encounters and befriends her neighbors, a mentally impaired young man called Dickens and his older sister Dell who is blind in one eye from a bee sting. At this point the story begins to unfold, revealing a past connection between Dell and Jeliza-Rose's deceased father. The eccentric neighbors take the girl under their wing, going so far as to preserve Noah's body via taxidermy (which Dell and Dickens did to their own dead mother). Amorous feelings, initiated mostly by the much younger Jeliza-Rose, begin to creep into the childlike relationship between her and Dickens, and it is revealed that the deeply troubled Dickens, a man-child who once drove a school bus in front of an oncoming train, keeps a stash of dynamite in his bedroom that he intends to use against the "Monster Shark" he believes is roaming the countryside. The Monster Shark is, in reality, the nightly passenger train that travels past the farmhouse where Jeliza-Rose and her dead father reside. It is also revealed that Dell and Noah were once "kissers", as Jeliza-Rose finds pictures of the two in the room Dell shares with her own taxidermied mother.

At the end of the film, following a violent confrontation between Dell, Dickens and Jeliza-Rose, a train wreck is caused by Dickens' dynamite, creating a scene of chaos near the farmhouse. Wandering about the wreckage, and among the confusion of injured travelers, Jeliza-Rose is discovered by a woman who survived, and she assumes the little girl is also a victim of the train wreck. The film ends with the woman embracing Jeliza-Rose, who stares with stunned confusion at the wreckage.

Setting: 90 years in the dining room of the Bayard House.

Length: ~35 minutes

Summary: A one-act drama about several generations of one family:

A play whose action traverses ninety years and represents in accelerated motion ninety Christmas dinners in the Bayard home. The development of the countryside, the changes in customs and manners during this period of time as well as the growth of the Bayard family and their accumulation of property sums up vividly a wide aspect of American life. It is a serious play lightened with humor of character; it has a human, tender, moving quality both appealing and forceful.

''Tim'' is the story of the developing relationship between an older, educated and wealthy American woman, Mary Horton who lives on her own and a handsome, developmentally impaired 24-year-old builder's labourer, Tim Melville, whom she hires. Tim lives with his sister, Dawnie, who is a year older than he is, and their parents Ron and Emily. Dawnie marries her boyfriend, Mick Harrington. Dawnie and Mick make clear they dislike Mary and oppose her relationship with Tim, but do not state their reason for feeling that way. Tim eventually marries Mary.

In 1897, a visitor from the East, Count Dracula, arrives in London and is inadvertently invited into the home of Lucy Westenra. She is bitten by Dracula, and taken by his curse. Lucy's behavior becomes more erratic leading her to bite her fiancé. Lucy is immediately put under the care of Dr. Van Helsing. Van Helsing does blood tests on Lucy and declares "Vampyre!" as the source of the problem, and puts Lucy to bed adorned with garlic.

That night, Renfield, a mental patient who lives in the asylum next to Lucy's home, escapes from confinement and Lucy's house is broken into by demons. Lucy's mother awakens in the commotion. Panicked by the demons, Lucy's mother opens the door and inadvertently re-invites Dracula into the house. Both Lucy and her mother are killed in this incident and a funeral procession takes place. The next day, Renfield is recaptured and placed back into the mental hospital. Bizarre incidents begin to occur around the city with newspapers headlines proclaiming a "Bloofer Lady" who has been murdering infants. Renfield is interrogated and confesses that Dracula has brought Lucy back from the dead committing these deeds and the solution to the problem lies in the graveyard.

Van Helsing and Lucy's suitors go there and spy Dracula and the undead Lucy in a full romantic embrace. After Dracula leaves, Van Helsing declares, "We must destroy the false Lucy so the real one may live forever". When Van Helsing opens the Lucy's coffin, Lucy rises out and attacks the men. Lucy is eventually subdued by a piercing stab from Jonathan's long wooden stakes and a decapitation with a shovel by Van Helsing who then declares they must find and defeat the vampyre. Van Helsing and his men go to interrogate Renfield finding out that Dracula's next plan is to attack Lucy's best friend Mina.

Mina, who is in a convent, aids her injured fiancé, Jonathon Harker. Harker had journeyed to Castle Dracula, where he had intended to finalize a land sale. Upon arriving, Harker was ravaged by three Brides of Dracula, who overpowered him. Harker eventually finalized the land deal for Dracula, and was imprisoned in the Castle. Harker escaped to the convent. In the convent, Mina finds Jonathon's diary and learns of his pleasures with the Brides of Dracula. With what she has discovered about Harker, Mina becomes progressively more sexually aggressive, which makes Harker nervous. He flees with the diary. Mina attempts to follow Harker but comes face to face with Dracula, who kidnaps her and takes her to Castle Dracula.

In Castle Dracula, Dracula woos Mina, tempting her with offers of riches and eventually biting her on the neck, solidifying his curse. Harker, along with Van Helsing and his men, break into Dracula's castle and dispatch the Brides of Dracula with long wooden stakes. The men eventually stumble upon Mina and find the mark of Dracula's bite upon her. Attempting to root out Dracula, the men smash coffins and place Christian crosses in them. Dracula attacks the men.

After the battle, Dracula and Mina are the only two left conscious. Mina scurries to a window with a cross and pulls it open to stun Dracula with the sunlight. The men regain consciousness, surround Dracula, and stab him with their stakes. The castle is demolished by Van Helsing's men and everyone departs. Dracula is left hanging motionless, impaled on a giant stake.

The film opens on two young children whose mother is dying in the present-day Gimli, Manitoba hospital. During a visit to see her, the children's Icelandic grandmother launches into the grim and convoluted tale of Einar the Lonely, a patient in a far-distant-past version of the same hospital—in "a Gimli we no longer know," as the grandmother puts it. The rest of the film consists of Einar's story.

Einar (Kyle McCulloch) succumbs to a smallpox epidemic and is admitted to the Gimli hospital for treatment, where he meets his neighbor Gunnar (Michael Gottli). While both are at first pleased to have a friend nearby in their time of illness, the two men soon begin competing for the attentions and affections of the hospital's beautiful young nurses. Gunnar outperforms Einar in this regard, given his storytelling abilities and his skill at carving birch bark into the shape of fish. The hospital is built above a stable (for heat from the animals) and director Maddin appears in a cameo as a surgeon who operates while patients are told to observe a badly-acted puppet show as a sort of anesthesia.

Gunnar borrows Einar's fish-carving shears and recognizes the decorated pair of shears as uncannily similar to those he buried with his wife Snjófridur (Angela Heck). Gunnar recalls the story of their courtship and her death from smallpox she contracted from Gunnar. His aboriginal friend, despite Gunnar's protests, then laid her body to rest in the traditional aboriginal manner, on a raised platform with tokens and gifts including the shears. Einar relates to Gunnar the story of how he came to possess the shears: while wandering in the dark one night he discovered the corpse of a beautiful woman on a raised burial platform (who he now realizes must have been Snjófridur). Einar stole the tokens buried with her and had sex with her corpse.

Gunnar is furious but too weak to take immediate revenge on Einar, and coincidentally a fire breaks out on the hospital roof. The Icelanders put out the fire by pouring milk over it, which then drips down into Gunnar's face and blinds him. A blackfaced minstrel is buried and Einar contemplates further destroying Gunnar through carving him up with the selfsame shears stolen from his wife's corpse. Einar and Gunnar exit the hospital and wander around feverishly. Einar observes Lord Dufferin giving a public speech. Einar hallucinates that Lord Dufferin is the mythical Fish Princess. The men end up in a field together along with a Shriners Highland Pipe Band and begin to Glima Wrestle—a traditional competition where fighters graps each other's buttocks and take turns lifting one another up until one collapses. They tear each other's clothes and claw at each other's buttocks until they bleed, then both collapse.

Einar is later back in his small shack/fish smokehouse and is visited by a recovered and no-longer-blind Gunnar and his new fiance. They happily saunter along the beach of Lake Winnipeg while Einar regards them jealously, still Einar the Lonely. The scene returns to the present-day Gimli where the children are informed that their mother has died. They ask the storytelling Amma to be their mother and she says "no" but that she will still visit "if your father lets me." They ask about heaven and she prepares to tell another story as the film ends.

The manga follows the story of 16-year-old Mana on an adventure through the Aquarian Age. Mana returns to her hometown to reunite with her childhood friend after having been away for seven years. But her friend, Kaname, seems to have changed while they have been apart.

Mana's re-emergence soon sets off a series of events that alters the lives of Kaname and his best friend, Naoya. Classmates Isshin and Tsukasa, as well as their teacher Tomonori, find themselves drawn in as well. Soon, they discover that they play a part in the "Aquarian Age"—a war that had been raging secretly for thousands of years. By destiny, the future of the world rests in Mana's hands.

Jake Feldman is a fur trader who desperately wants to have sex with a stripper named Shanna, who has no interest in him. One of his suppliers, Jeb Jameson and his son, go onto private land owned by an old woman known as "Mother Mater," to trap animals. They find each trap containing a raccoon, and Jameson schools his son on the proper way to kill them: crush their windpipes with a boot, and if they survive, crush their skulls with a baseball bat.

After processing, all of the raccoon pelts are perfect, and Jameson calls Feldman to arrange a sale. However, after Jameson goes to bed, his son Larry becomes mesmerized by the hanging furs, then pulls out the baseball bat and beats his father to death. Larry then opens a trap and sticks his face in, ripping it off. Feldman and his assistant arrive the next day to discover the beautiful pelts and both Jameson and his son dead. They steal the pelts and proceed to make a coat, which Feldman asks Shanna to model at the furriers expo. Inspired by his assistant, Feldman figures out where the Jamesons got the pelts by finding Jeb's map to Mother Mater's land, and visits Mother Mater to ask for a few raccoons to breed for fur.

Mother Mater states the reason she warns people off her land is because the raccoons have taken up guardianship of the lost city's ruins on them. She rages and chases him off, screaming that they have not yet had their say. The fur trimmer, Sergio, disembowels himself with his scissors after cutting the pelts. The seamstress, Sue Chin Yao, sews her nose, eyes and mouth shut after finishing the coat, then suffocates. Feldman is only concerned that the coat is finished, and takes it to Shanna's apartment. She is entranced by the coat and eager to model it, but Feldman says he is still considering other models. Shanna sees this as a request for sex, and agrees.

After they have sex, during which Shanna is wearing the fur coat, Feldman says he needs the bathroom and something sharp. Taking a knife with him, Feldman skins his own torso and creates a vest, bringing it out to Shanna. She panics and runs to the elevator, managing to take it down one floor before Feldman falls down the elevator shaft after her. She tries to escape, but Feldman grabs her leg and her hand is caught and crushed in the doors. Police find their bodies, and the film ends on one of the cops making a bloody footprint.

In the New England town of New Gilead during the late 19th century, an unscrupulous drunkard named Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price) runs the funeral parlor he acquired from his former business partner Amos Hinchley (Boris Karloff) after marrying his daughter Amaryllis (Joyce Jameson). Trumbull enlists the assistance of a fugitive picklock named Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre) in conducting his business cheaply by reusing the firm's only coffin to unceremoniously dump the deceased while arranging the occasional murder of wealthy clients. Trumbull, being emotionally abusive to Amaryllis while attempting to poison the now-senile Hinchley under the guise of giving him medicine, ultimately wastes his money on alcohol as clientele is dwindling.

Trumbull decides to profit from gentleman shipping merchant Mr. Phipps after being threatened with eviction by his landlord John F. Black (Rathbone) if he does not produce the long-overdue rent. Trumbull forces Gillie to get him into the Phipps estate, smothering the old man in his sleep and then making a fortuitous return the following morning to get the job of burying him. But Trumbull is livid to learn on the day of the funeral that Phipps's attractive young wife has left town with her husband's fortune without even paying for the funerary expenses. Trumbull decides to murder Black after receiving a final warning for rent, having Gillie enter through the upstairs window of Black's estate. Gillie ends up in Black's bedroom as the man is reading from Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' and is forced to run out when spotted, causing Black to suffer a heart attack with the physician pronouncing him dead.

But Trumbull and Gillie, after taking him to the funeral parlor, are unaware that Black suffers from catalepsy. He is awakened in the cellar due to his cat allergy and recognizes Gillie. After attempting to keep Black from running off, during which he collapses from another heart attack, Trumbull and Gillie place him in the coffin with the former knocking out Black when he comes to and struggles to get out of it. Following a successive funeral, the supposedly deceased Black is placed in his family crypt with Trumbull celebrating his ill gotten fortune. At that time, having feelings for Amaryllis and tired of being bossed around, Gillie convinces her that they should leave Trumbull so she can live her dream of becoming an opera singer. But Black regains consciousness at that time and returns to the funeral parlor while quoting random ''Macbeth'' lines, grabbing an axe and causing Amaryllis to faint. Black then chases Trumbull and Gillie around the house with the latter being knocked unconscious after falling down a flight of stairs before Black is seemingly killed by Trumbull; Black giving a lengthy monologue before finally dying.

Amaryllis comes down and assumes Trumbull to have murdered Gillie before being strangled by him when she threatens to report him to the authorities. Gillie awakens soon after and vengefully attacks Trumbull in a comical swordfight before being knocked out again with a poker. Mr. Black's servant arrives to report Black's sighting in the town before seeing the dead bodies and running off for the police. A depressed Trumbull collapses in a semi-conscious heap on the floor by the stairs, failing to realize Amaryllis is still alive as she wakes Gillie and the two proceed to elope. Hinchley, who has slept through everything, comes down stairs and gives Trumbull the vial of "medicine" to sober him up. Trumbull sobers up and realizes he has drunk his own poison, dramatically dropping dead as an oblivious Hinchley returns to bed while regretting not getting a sip of his own "medicine". Following Trumbull's death, the family cat Cleopatra walks over to Black, causing him to regain consciousness when his allergy acts up.

'Metzengerstein' segment

At the age of 22, Countess Frederique (Jane Fonda) inherits the Metzengerstein estate and lives a life of promiscuity and debauchery. While in the forest, her leg is caught in a trap and she is freed by her cousin and neighbour Baron Wilhelm (Peter Fonda), whom she has never met because of a long-standing family feud. She becomes enamoured with Wilhelm, but he rejects her for her wicked ways. His rejection infuriates Frederique and she sets his stables on fire. Wilhelm is killed attempting to save his prized horses.

One black horse somehow escapes and makes its way to the Metzengerstein castle. The horse is very wild and Frederique takes it upon herself to tame it. She notices at one point that a damaged tapestry depicts a horse eerily similar to the one that she has just taken in. Becoming obsessed with it, she orders its repair. During a thunderstorm, Frederique is carried off by the spooked horse into a fire caused by lightning that has struck.

'William Wilson' segment

In the early 19th century when Northern Italy is under Austrian rule, an army officer named William Wilson (Alain Delon) rushes to confess to a priest (in a church of the "Città alta" of Bergamo) that he has committed murder. Wilson then relates the story of his cruel ways throughout his life. After playing cards all night against the courtesan Giuseppina (Brigitte Bardot), his ''doppelgänger'', also named William Wilson, convinces people that Wilson has cheated. In a rage, the protagonist Wilson stabs the other to death with a dagger. After making his confession, Wilson commits suicide by jumping from the tower of "Palazzo della Ragione", but when seen his corpse is transfixed by the same dagger.

'Toby Dammit' segment

Former Shakespearean actor Toby Dammit (Terence Stamp) is losing his acting career to alcoholism. He agrees to work on a film, to be shot in Rome, for which he will be given a brand new Ferrari as a bonus incentive. Dammit begins to have unexpected visions of a macabre girl with a white ball. While at a film award ceremony, he gets drunk and appears to be slowly losing his mind. A stunning woman (Antonia Pietrosi) comforts him, saying she will always be at his side if he chooses. Dammit is forced to make a speech, then leaves and takes delivery of his promised Ferrari. He races around the city, where he sees what appear to be fake people in the streets. Lost outside of Rome, Dammit eventually crashes into a work zone and comes to a stop before the site of a collapsed bridge. Across the ravine, he sees a vision of the little girl with a ball (whom he has earlier identified, in a TV interview, as his idea of the Devil). He gets into his car and speeds toward the void. The Ferrari disappears, and we then see a view of roadway with a thick wire across it, dripping with blood, suggesting Dammit has been decapitated. The girl from his vision picks up his severed head and the sun rises. The segment is 43 minutes long and features 'Ruby' by Ray Charles as well as the music of Nino Rota.

A group of adventurers journey deep into the South American jungle in search of ancient Incan treasure. A beautiful woman, brought to their camp by hired bearers, has come to join her husband, a newer member of the group, who was recently killed by hostile natives. As the months pass, jealousies and tempers flare as fights break out over the woman. The Incan treasure is eventually found but the treasure-seekers, now united by a common enemy, are about to be attacked by hordes of fierce natives armed with bows and poisoned arrows.

The Catholic Church mourns the sudden death of Pope Pius XVI, and prepares for the papal conclave to elect his successor in Vatican City. Father Patrick McKenna, the camerlengo, takes temporary control of the Vatican during the ''sede vacante'' period.

Meanwhile, at CERN, scientists Father Silvano Bentivoglio and Dr. Vittoria Vetra create three canisters of antimatter. As Vetra goes to evaluate the experiment, she discovers that Silvano has been murdered, and one of the canisters was stolen. Shortly thereafter, four of the ''preferiti'', the favored candidates to be elected pope, are kidnapped by a man claiming to represent the Illuminati. He sends the Vatican a warning, claiming he will murder each of the cardinals from 8 p.m. to midnight, when the stolen antimatter will explode and destroy the city, hidden somewhere within.

Having attracted the Church’s attention after searching for the Priory of Sion in Paris and London, American symbologist Professor Robert Langdon is brought to the Vatican to help. After listening to the assassin's threat, he deduces that the four cardinals will be murdered on the four altars of the "Path of Illumination", in locations relevant to the classical elements. McKenna gives Langdon access to the Vatican Secret Archives to research the altars, against the wishes of Commander Richter, head of the Swiss Guard. Langdon and Dr. Vetra examine Galileo Galilei's banned book, finding clues to the first altar. Initially believing it to be at the Pantheon, they eventually discover it to be the Chigi Chapel. Though they rush to the chapel, accompanied by Ernesto Olivetti and Claudio Vincenzi of the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City, they are too late to save Cardinal Ebner, who is found dead, having suffocated on a mouthful of dirt and branded with the ambigrammatic word "Earth".

Following the clue left by a Bernini statue at the Chigi Chapel, Langdon discovers the second altar to be a Bernini-created sculpture in St. Peter's Square. Upon reaching it, they find Cardinal Lamassé mortally wounded, his lungs punctured and his chest branded with the ambigram "Air". After reading a threatening note left on Lamassé's body, Vetra comes to suspect that Pius XVI did not die of a stroke as believed, but was actually murdered with an overdose of tinzaparin, which he had been secretly taking for his thrombophlebitis. This is confirmed when McKenna and Vetra secretly inspect the body in the Vatican necropolis. After returning to the Archives for further research, Langdon, Olivetti, and Vincenzi eventually identify the Santa Maria della Vittoria as the altar of fire, where they fail to save Cardinal Guidera, branded with the ambigram "Fire" from burning to death when the assassin appears, who kills everyone except Langdon before escaping.

After consulting a map of Rome, Langdon identifies the final altar as Piazza Navona's ''Four Rivers'' sculpture. Escorted by two Vatican police officers, they find the assassin attempting to drown Cardinal Baggia, who is branded with the ambigram "Water", in the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. The officers are killed by the assassin, but Langdon manages to rescue Baggia with the timely help of bystanders. Baggia tells Langdon he was held with the ''preferiti'' in Castel Sant'Angelo.

Richter confiscates Dr. Silvano's journals, thus convincing Vetra that he is a conspirator. Langdon, Vetra, and the police storm Castel Sant'Angelo. Langdon and Vetra find the assassin's lair, discovering the four brands used on the cardinals, and deduce that the missing fifth is meant for McKenna. Before escaping, the assassin claims he was hired by "men of God". Guided to a car by his unseen contractor, the assassin is killed when the vehicle is destroyed by a car bomb. Langdon and Vetra find a secret passageway leading to the Vatican, warning the Swiss Guard of McKenna's fate. They find Richter hovering over a branded McKenna. Richter and Archbishop Simeon, an alleged conspirator, are killed. Langdon retrieves a key from the dying Richter's hand.

The antimatter container is found in Saint Peter's tomb, due to detonate in five minutes, the cold temperature preventing its battery from being changed in time (according to Vetra, the device would not have enough residual charge to keep the antimatter in suspension). McKenna, a former helicopter pilot, seizes the canister and pilots a helicopter into the sky, parachuting out seconds before the antimatter detonates. The explosion unleashes a powerful, blinding shockwave that causes damage and injuries throughout Vatican City but no lives are lost and the Church is saved. McKenna is hailed as a hero, with calls for him to be elected pope by acclamation.

Langdon and Vetra retrieve Silvano's journals from Richter's office, finding he kept tabs on the Pope with hidden security cameras for medical reasons. Using the key Langdon retrieved from Richter, they discover that McKenna was the true mastermind behind the attacks. The Pope had invited Silvano to publicly present the antimatter as proof of a divine power, bridging the gap between religion and science and potentially ending the conflict between them. Considering such a claim blasphemy, McKenna orchestrated Pius XVI's death and hired the assassin, plotting to have himself elected as pope while making the Illuminati the scapegoat. The footage is shown to the papal conclave. McKenna, realizing he has been exposed, commits suicide via self-immolation after refusing to be taken alive.

The following morning, Cardinal Baggia is elected as the new pope. He chooses to take the name Pope Luke, an allusion to the biblical Luke being both a doctor and an apostle—symbolically bridging the gap between science and religion. The Vatican also announces McKenna has died from injuries from his parachute landing, which leads to calls for sainthood (since the people are not aware that he was the mastermind). Cardinal Strauss, the Pope's new camerlengo, gives Galileo's book to Langdon as thanks for his help, asking that he ensure it returns to the Vatican in his last will and testament. Pope Luke gives Langdon and Vetra a thankful nod, before stepping out on the balcony to greet the crowd below and give the traditional first ''Urbi et Orbi'' as pope.

In 1888, Jack the Ripper – lamenting the fact that his ritualistic murders have not unlocked a mystical power that he believes to exist – prepares to perform the ritual upon himself at the expense of his own life. A man named Legion appears and tells Jack that the power he seeks does exist and offers to share this power with him if Jack constructs an insane asylum for like-minded killers in Deadside – the land of the dead. Proclaiming "for we are many!", Jack commits suicide.

In the present day, Michael LeRoi becomes the current Shadow Man – a lineage of voodoo warriors who protect the world of the living (known as Liveside) from threats crossing over from Deadside – after the voodoo priestess Mama Nettie bonds the Mask of Shadows to him. Nettie has a prophetic dream that Legion is preparing to usher in the Apocalypse by claiming the Dark Souls – the immortal souls of damned warriors – and using them to create an immortal army and send it into Liveside. Nettie reveals that Michael cannot stop the Five, a group of serial killers recruited by Legion, without his powers. The Five, who each have a Dark Soul within them, are hiding in Liveside, where Michael's powers do not work during the day. Michael travels to Deadside with the use of his dead brother's teddy bear, which serves as a link between both worlds.

After collecting all of the Dark Souls in Deadside and passing trials set by the gods of Deadside, Michael assembles a magic knife called the Eclipser. Returning to Liveside, Nettie uses the Eclipser to trigger an eclipse, which enables Michael to become the Shadow Man in Liveside. The ritual drains Nettie of her powers and causes her to go into a deep sleep.

Michael returns to Deadside and finds the Asylum as well as the Dark Engine which powers it. Michael finds his long-dead brother Luke within the Dark Engine along with several paths to Liveside which lead to the hiding places of the Five. Michael defeats the Five and claims each of their souls in the process. During this time, Michael finds Jack the Ripper's diary, which contains instructions on how to shut down the Engine. Michael returns to Deadside and shuts down the Engine, giving Luke his teddy bear back. Luke reveals himself to be Legion in disguise.

Legion reveals that he sent Nettie the dream so that Michael would be forced to collect all of the Dark Souls and confront Legion, enabling Legion to claim all of the souls at once and use them to power the Engine, creating his army and sending it into Liveside. After an intense battle, Michael gives Legion all of the souls, whose combined power overwhelms Legion and kills him, destroying the Asylum as well. However, Michael is now stranded in Deadside but embraces his position as lord of Deadside.

The game starts off as a New York cop and his partner fight a huge demonic creature in an abandoned building. Their goal is to steal an enormous ancient book because it couldn't be put in the wrong hands, in this case, the hands of the demon. The cop successfully grabs it and escapes the building but his partner gets shredded into pieces by the demon's claws.

Some ten years later a near-empty passenger train is headed to New Orleans. Mostly alone sits Michael LeRoi waiting for night to fall when he shall turn into The Shadowman. Nettie was waiting for him at her church but she felt something wrong. She looked at the sky and saw a blazing star and knew it meant trouble. Simultaneously in a run down N.Y. tenement building a legless wheelchair man with the face a mass of scar tissue rolled over to the window and noticed the gigantic star. Michael had already looked out the dusty train window and noticed the unfamiliar sky. He had to ask Nettie cause the whole world might be in trouble.

Wasting no time upon his arrival in New Orleans he ran to the Wild at Heart bar who was running by Jaunty, the closest thing Michael had to a "friend". The bar was deserted and dead quiet which was severely out of place. He couldn't find Jaunty but once he went into the upstairs loft he found everything ransacked and bloody arcane symbols drawn on the walls. Mike knew it was some sort of gang but he didn’t recognize it.

After meeting up with Nettie in the church they both plan to search the Louisiana swampland for Jaunty. LeRoi still needed to find his gun and his dad's pocket watch but Jaunty was first priority. The mysterious gang had kidnapped Jaunty and hung him in a tree with the same arcane symbols from the bar but this time they were on his head. After LeRoi finds and returns Jaunty to Mama Nettie, he is cursed with a powerful spell. Upon completion of his second task and after another visit with Mama Nettie, LeRoi receives a note from a man named Thomas Deacon whom he goes about in search of. After which LeRoi learns of "The Codex" book, Asmodeus and the Grigori, as well as their plan to cause Armageddon. It is once again up to Mike LeRoi, or Shadow Man, to save the world.

The story takes place in Hong Kong in a conflict between worlds of Humans and "Rapters" ("Reptoids" in some dubbed versions) before the handover. A special police unit in the city are investigating a mysterious drug named "Happiness". Taki, one of the policemen, meets his old lover Windy, who is a rapter and now a mistress of a powerful old rapter named Daishu. Taki and other special police members track down and fight Daishu, but later find that he hoped to coexist with humans. The son of Daishu, Shudo, is the mastermind. In the end Shudo is defeated, but Daishu and Taki's friends die, too. Windy leaves alone.

The film begins with the sun setting in Tokyo. Unknown to most people, there is the demonic "Rapter World" in conflict with human world. Rapters shift their shapes and infiltrate human world. Taki (or "Leung", played by Leon Lai) is a sales of a Hong Kong import/export company, but that is only his cover. He reveals his real occupation when he hunts down a seductive spider-like rapter in Tokyo. Ken saved his life when Taki ran out of bullets. Taki belongs to the Anti-Rapter Special Police. One day he is transferred back to Hong Kong. The 1997 transfer of Hong Kong is near, Anti-Rapter Special Police Headquarter transferred many agents from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom. This is a chaotic period when Hong Kong is most vulnerable to rapters. That's why Taki is sent to Hong Kong to help.

Also in the unit is Taki's buddy Ken Kai (or "Ying", Jacky Cheung). Ken's father fall in love with a rapter, thus in the veins of Ken flows the black blood of rapter, which caused distrust on him every time. But he always hopes to prove his humanity. Besides Taki, Orchid ("Loh", by Carman Lee) is the only one in the unit on his side. When Ken felt Taki did not trust him well enough, Taki tells him about his past relationship with a rapter, Windy ("Gaye", Michelle Reis). Taki was ordered to arrest Windy and was critically injured by the other rapters who were hunting down Windy. Windy healed him out of goodwill, as she escaped to the human world in hope for peace. Windy became Taki's informant against raptors and the two become romantically bound. However Taki was afraid he will step into Ken's father's shoes, and he eventually ran away from Windy.

Once Taki is back in Hong Kong from Tokyo, the unit begins investigation on an addictive and harmful performance-enhancing drug named "Happiness". The emotionless leader of the police unit Sergeant Kayama ("Commander", Yuen Woo-ping) suspects that Happiness is imported from the Rapter World by a tycoon named Daishu ("Yuen", Tatsuya Nakadai). He orders Taki and Ken to slip into Daishu's mysterious 150th birthday party. There Taki meets his former lover ("Gaye", Michelle Reis), who is now a mistress of Daishu. On the other hand, Daishu and his raptor staffs are having a meeting, because they don't know who is importing Happiness the drug either. The staffs are nervous, but Daishu persuades them to control humans' economy to bargain with humans.

The meeting is attacked by two rapter killers. All other staffs are killed. Daishu is injured and Windy is injected with Happiness, however they escape from killers and police. Sergeant Kayama suspects a traitor in the unit. He suspends Ken from duty and says he has a suspicious origin. Knowing rapters would access energy to recover, Sergeant Kayama pays attention to electricity consumption over districts and locates the rapters in a power plant. Taki enters the plant, lets Windy escape but catches Daishu. Windy seeks help from Daishu's son Shudo ("Gwei", Roy Cheung). Shudo orders her loyalty to him and sexual intercourse happens between the two. Windy is sent to hurt Taki with the poison and later she too is caught by police, as she is also framed by Shudo.

Daishu hopes to coexist with humans, since worlds of rapters and humans are together facing the energy crisis. Further more, he hopes to learn human emotions. His son Shudo is the mastermind who imports Happiness and attacks Daishu. Shudo also trades with Orchid, the real traitor in the police unit. Orchid doesn't care about either humans or rapters, she only wants to make money and leave the city to survive the energy crisis. With help of Windy, Taki and Ken find out the truth, but Windy falls into hands of Shudo. They rescue Daishu from the unit and join forces to fight Shudo and his two killers. On the other hand, Sergeant Kayama's announcement to suspend Ken is a trap to lure out the real traitor. Orchid is caught by Sergeant Kayama after she sabotaged the police unit's facility. Sergeant Kayama kills Orchid in cold blood, and leads a team to go after Taki. Because of Orchid's sabotage, an artificial magnetic field that protects Hong Kong is turned off, and Shudo is now able to turn the time backward to an age when humans are easy to control. Taki and Ken collaborate with Daishu to stop Shudo.

After night battles, Shudo's killers are eliminated by Daishu, but Ken under Shudo's influence turns into a rapter and then is injured by Sergeant Kayama's team. Windy is dying from the effect of Happiness. Daishu returns to his rapter form to battle Shudo. Daishu says it is because only a rapter can kill his own son. Shudo is happy for his father finally turns back to a rapter. Later they jump on an aeroplane and fight above Hong Kong. Daishu's power is weakened by age, but he dives into Shudo's shadow and defeats him with the power of his shadow. Shudo takes Taki as hostage, as he knows human emotion is his father's weakness. As an act to protect Taki, Windy stabs Ken in the stomach. At the same time Ken regains human consciousness. He gives his blood to Windy so that Windy is able to overcome Happiness and rescue Taki from Shudo.

In the end Shudo is killed. Sergeant Kayama's team put the aircraft on the tip of Bank of China Tower. With remorse of failing to prove his humanity, Ken dies in arms of Sergeant Kayama.

Weighting his duty and emotion, Taki frees Daishu and Windy from hands of special police, as he knows Daishu is the one who can protect Windy well. Taki pretends the other police will come down to arrest them and Windy claims she will not appear in the city again, making Taki turning against his missions. As the two turn around, a hurt Taki sadly remarks: "I don't mind, I don't mind at all...". Taki meets a sad Sergeant Kayama and says Kayama may have become too emotional to lead the unit.

On a car, Daishu dies for depletion of energy, hoping humans do not need any more "happiness", leaving only Windy drives away from the city alone at dawn.

Ji-eun and Hee-jung live with their father Jong-man, a truck driver. When Ji-eun finds out her sister is the daughter of a famous fashion designer, she takes over her place and, led by jealousy, commits many misdeeds.

During a shootout against Japanese Yakuza at a San Francisco dock warehouse, FBI agents John Crawford (Jason Statham) and Tom Lone (Terry Chen) stumble across the notorious assassin Rogue (Jet Li), a former CIA assassin who now works for the Japanese Yakuza. Rogue ambushes Crawford and is about to execute him when Lone appears and shoots Rogue in the face, causing him to fall into the water. Rogue's body was never found and he is presumed dead. However, Rogue survives and retaliates against Lone, his wife and his daughter. He kills them, burns down the house, and leaves their three corpses in the ashes of their home.

Three years later, Rogue re-appears, working under Chinese Triad boss Li Chang (John Lone). While working with Chang, Rogue secretly instigates a war between the Triads and the Yakuza, led by Shiro Yanagawa (Ryo Ishibashi). Rogue first attacks a club run by the Yakuza by killing the gangsters and later on the runners in order to recover a pair of antique gold horses, family heirlooms of Chang.

Now the head agent of the FBI's Asian Crime Task Force, Crawford is determined to hunt Rogue down and exact revenge for Lone's death. Crawford's obsessive pursuit of Rogue has taken a toll on his personal life causing him to be estranged from his family. Crawford comes close to catching Rogue in the wake of Rogue's various killing sprees against the Triads and Yakuza, but Rogue always manages to stay one step ahead.

Ultimately, Rogue's actions have gained the trust of both Chang and Yanagawa. Rogue succeeds in killing Chang, but spares Chang's wife and child, turning on the Yakuza. With Chang dead, Yanagawa appears in America, intending to expand Yakuza business operations. However, he is confronted by Crawford and the FBI; Crawford presents Yanagawa with proof that Rogue has betrayed him and spared Chang's family, but Yanagawa refuses to assist Crawford in locating Rogue.

Later, Rogue delivers the horses to Yanagawa personally. Knowing of Rogue's betrayal, Yanagawa captures Rogue and demands the location of Chang's family. Rogue turns the tables on Yanagawa's men and kills them all, and engages in a sword fight against Yanagawa himself. Yanagawa discovers that the real Rogue was killed when attempting to assassinate Lone. Lone in turn surgically altered himself to assume the assassin's identity. Lone reveals that his actions have all been designed to bring him face-to-face with Yanagawa, so he could kill the man who ordered the death of his family. Yanagawa reveals that Crawford was in his pocket that whole time and responsible for leaking Tom Lone's identity and home address to the real Rogue. Angered, Lone disarms and decapitates Yanagawa.

Meanwhile, Chang's wife receives a package from Lone, containing one of the two golden horses that belongs to Chang's family and a message reading, "Make a new life". Yanagawa's daughter also receives a package with the same message and inside the box is her father's head. Lone then calls Crawford as he is packing up his office, asking him to meet him at the dock warehouse where they last made their investigation. Before going to the warehouse, Crawford enlists the help of Goi (Sung Kang), an FBI sniper that aided Crawford throughout the investigation.

At the warehouse, Crawford and Lone battle each other in an intense hand-to-hand fight in which Lone reveals his true identity to Crawford.

When Lone reveals his true identity, a devastated Crawford reveals that it was true that he was working for Yanagawa at the time but had no idea that Rogue was still alive. He was then blackmailed into giving Lone's address to Yanagawa thinking that Yanagawa's men were only going there to "rough him up a bit". Ever since, Crawford was angry at himself and wanted revenge against Rogue and those involved in what he thought was his partner's death.

Crawford asks for forgiveness, but Lone refuses and shoots him in the back after Crawford jumps in front of Goi’s line of sight to prevent a kill shot. The next day, Lone drives out of town to start a new life.

In our own universe, Hypatia of Alexandria was killed for her non-Christian views, shortly before the destruction of the Library of Alexandria by an angry mob. In the universe of the novels, Hypatia was converted to Christianity by John Chrysostom, and stopped the mob from destroying the Library. She continued her correspondence with John and Augustine of Hippo, which eventually led to the modern (1530s) divisions of the Church.

''The Shadow of the Lion'' (2002) deals with Chernobog's attempt to destroy Venice and the awakening of the city's ancient powers. Marco is the main protagonist, while Chernobog acts through several intermediaries.

''This Rough Magic'' (2003) is set in Corfu and features several new antagonists. It is largely centered on Maria and Benito's awakening, Marco having fit comfortably in his new role in Venice. Elizabeth Bartholdy has replaced Chernobog as the major behind-the-scenes villain in the book.

''A Mankind Witch'' (2005) is a solo effort by Freer, and takes place between ''Shadow of the Lion'' and ''This Rough Magic''. While Manfred and Eric are major characters, the focus is shifted to a thrall, Cair Aidin, and the Princess of Telemark, Signy. Trolls are the major antagonists of the story.

''Much Fall of Blood'' (2010) follows Manfred and Erik after their journey to Jerusalem. They are attempting to broker an agreement between the Ilkhan and their nomadic cousins, the Golden Horde, which is complicated by disguised agents of Chernobog who wish to ensure no agreement occurs. In parallel, and eventually intersecting, Elizabeth Bartholdy's latest plot seeks to exploit and destroy an ancient supernatural pact between the family line of Prince Vlad of Wallachia and the supernatural powers that live in his domain, and both her nephew Prince Emeric of Hungary and the dark magician Count Mindaug work their own plots subverting hers.

''Burdens of the Dead'' (2013) centers on Benito Valdosta's attempt to stop Chernobog's plots once and for all thanks after the revelations of ''Much Fall of Blood'', through a naval war with Byzantium in an attempt to block a Black Sea fleet under construction for Chernobog from penetrating into the Mediterranean. The crossroads city of Constantinople is the focal point of their war, and the spirit of Hekate, goddess of crossroads and long worshipped in the Bosporus, quickly becomes involved in the war, and kidnapping and sorcery puts Benito's family at risk in an attempt to distract him and weaken the naval offensive. The original working title was ''Great Doom's Shadow''.<

''All the Plagues of Hell'' (2018), by Eric Flint & Dave Freer, focuses on the city of Milan. The condottiere Carlo Sforza foils its Duke's attempt to assassinate him, lethally, and takes control of the city. The illegitimate daughter of the dead duke awakens a spirit of plague in an attempt to take control for herself, and magicians across Europe seek the source of their premonitions that a plague is awakening. This is complicated by the arrival in Milan of a notorious black magician, Count Mindaug, who most of the Christian magicians believe is the architect of the plague, by the involvement of Sforza's illegitimate son, Benito Valdosta of Venice, and the antagonism Venice has had for Sforza, and by Sforza's belief that magic is faked and lacks any spiritual or supernatural power.

Nate Cooper is unable to get it together with women. But he also cannot forget his first love: the beautiful Cristabel Abbott, from their time in elementary school. Nate sets out for the beaches of California and meets up with his geeky best friend Arno, whose mother has an unnatural amount of information about Cristabel, and perhaps an unusual relationship with her son.

Cristabel jogs on the beach every day with many suitors trying to catch her eye, including an albino stalker. But she's still single, and there is a reason: Cristabel is still best friends with the same short, unattractive brunette girl whom Nate also knew in elementary school, June Phigg.

Nate reintroduces himself to Cristabel and they hit it off. However, she refuses to go on a date with him unless June has a date as well. Nate sets out to find a boyfriend for June, but men recoil at the sight of her. He tricks someone, under the pretense that he's offering $500 for participating in medical testing, then explains it's to date June. At first, he's repulsed by her, but Nate hypnotizes him, so temporarily fools his brain, but in the middle of a date he snaps out of it and runs.

One day at the Santa Monica Pier, Johann Wulrich, an attractive dentist and a part-time model, appears in their lives. He seems to want to do a makeover on June when he apparently sees her inner beauty. However, Nate believes that Johann is a threat to his shot for Cristabel, since Johann is almost perfect. Eventually, with June dating Johann, Cristabel finally begins dating Nate, per his original plan.

Over the next few weeks, as Nate and June become friends and she emerges from her cocoon, with her face and appearance transforming. She becomes a more and more attractive woman whose beauty begins to be comparable to Cristabel's. Nate slowly realizes that ''June'' may be the girl of his dreams. When he realizes this, Nate tells Cristabel, who is happy for June.

Nate then hurries to find June, discovering that she had rejected Johann, who'd thought he would get 'grateful sex' from her. When Nate finds her, he tells her he loves her, and they kiss.

Fatty, a butcher boy in a country store, is in love with Almondine (Alice Lake), the daughter of the store's general manager Mr. Grouch. Fatty's attempts to get close to her are sidetracked when the store's clerk Alum (Al St. John), a rival for Alice's affections, starts a fight with the rotund butcher. Their confrontation in the store soon involves a customer (Buster Keaton) as well as Grouch. The resulting mayhem includes small bags of flour being hurled and "exploding", pies being tossed, and brooms being wildly swung amid the thick clouds of flour lingering in the air.

Determined to marry Almondine, Fatty disguises himself as a female cousin and follows her to an all-girls boarding school. Unfortunately, Alum has the same idea and masquerades, too, as a female student. After another fight breaks out between Fatty and Alum, Fatty is taken by the school's principal Miss Teachem to a separate room to be punished. Meanwhile, Alum and his accomplices (Keaton and Joe Bordeaux) attempt to kidnap Almondine. Luckily, Fatty's dog Luke distracts the gang while Fatty and Almondine escape. Once outside, the couple see a sign on a tree identifying a nearby parsonage, so they run off arm-in-arm to get married there.

Note that the subtitles in a later release of ''The Butcher Boy'' cite new names for the characters: Alum is "Slim Snavely" and Almondine is "Amanda".

The fifth book starts off directly where the last book had ended, from the point of view of Trey, Luke's friend from Hendricks' School for Boys. After Luke Garner (Lee Grant) leaves Smits Grant, the younger brother of the real Lee Grant, in the care of his real parents, Luke's friend Trey finds himself at Mr. Talbot's front door preparing to explain all the recent events.

The car containing Trey's friends, Nina, Joel, and John takes off without Trey. The house is raided soon afterward and thanks to luck and his own vast knowledge from reading during his years in hiding, Trey manages to dive to safety behind a flowerpot. A member of the Population Police, who searches the porch, says ''liber'' (Latin for free). Trey's knowledge of Latin saves his life, as the raider reports that the porch is clear. After the raid, Trey sneaks into the house and encounters a hostile but stunning woman with bright red hair; she is none other than Mrs. Talbot. Together, they discover from a private news network that the government has been overthrown and replaced by the powerful Population Police. Defeated, Mrs. Talbot abandons the house and leaves Trey to fend for himself.

After sorting himself out and taking several obscure, important-looking documents found within the Talbot house, Trey sets out to find help, hoping to find Lee and the others. He winds up on the Garner farm and ventures out with Mark, one of Luke's older brothers, to find Luke/Lee and the rest of his friends. They instead find themselves at Population Police Headquarters, once the house of the Grants; Mark is captured and taken instead and Trey must sign up as a recruit to save him.

Using his own ingenuity, despite his own fears, Trey manages to save injured Mark by working out a deal with a Population Police guard. He was also able to save his missing friends and Mr. Talbot from execution with the help of a rebel named Nedley. The group finds safety at Mr. Hendricks' cottage and discovers the schools have been raided and emptied of their students and able-bodied teachers. Then the group is nursed back to health by Mrs. Talbot, who happens to be a doctor. Afterward, Trey presents the documents that he saved, despite several opportunities where he may have abandoned them. Mr. Talbot reveals that the documents conceal the identities of hundreds of Third Children with false identities and they decide to burn them to protect the children. But Trey wants to take the names and the responsibility. Trey snatches them away at the last moment, resolving to take small steps to destroy the Population Police from within along with Lee, Nina, the chauffeur, and Nedley.

A student, Shirō, is set to marry his girlfriend, Yukiko, the daughter of his professor, Mr. Yajima. After announcing the engagement, Shirō's colleague Tamura drives Shirō home. Taking a side street at Shirō's request, Tamura hits and kills yakuza gang leader, Kyōichi. Though Shirō wants to stop, Tamura keeps driving, feels no guilt and says that it is Shirō's fault for asking him to drive down that street. Kyōichi's mother, who witnessed the incident, resolves to find and kill them.

Though Tamura feels no guilt for the murder, Shirō does and attempts to go to the police. After telling Yukiko of what happened, Shirō insists that they take a taxi cab to the police station, despite Yukiko's pleas to walk instead. The vehicle crashes, killing Yukiko. After Yukiko's funeral, Shirō meets strip bar worker and Kyōichi's grieving girlfriend Yoko, who discovers Shirō's culpability for the hit-and-run after sleeping with him and, with Kyōichi's mother, plots revenge.

Shirō learns that his mother, Ito, who lives in a retirement community run by his father, Gōzō, is dying. Shirō arrives there and meets the other residents of the community, including a painter, Ensai, who is wanted for a crime in another city and is painting a portrait of Hell; a former reporter, Akagawa; a corrupt detective, Hariya; the community doctor, Dr. Kasuma; and Sachiko, a nurse and Ensai's daughter, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Yukiko. While Ito lies dying, Gōzō carries on an open affair with a mistress. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Yajima arrive by train. Ito dies, and Ensai (who was Ito's lover years prior to Ito and Gōzō's marriage) lambasts Gōzō for his activities with his mistress. Tamura appears and reveals that each resident has some complicity in a murder: Mr. Yajima caused the death of a fellow soldier during a war; both Hariya and Akagawa framed or slandered innocent men who then both died by suicide; and Dr. Kasuma knowingly misdiagnosed Ito's condition.

Yoko tracks Shirō down and meets with him on a rope bridge. She reveals her identity and attempts to shoot him, but trips and falls to her death. Tamura appears, and after a struggle, Tamura also falls into the gorge. Shirō returns in time for the community's tenth anniversary party, where Gōzō has allowed cheap, rancid fish to be served to the residents. As the partiers descend into insobriety, Mr. and Mrs. Yajima kill themselves by leaping in front of a train, and Gōzō's mistress falls to her death after an altercation. The residents die from consuming the tainted fish, and Kyōichi's mother poisons the remaining residents' wine, killing them. Tamura, near death, stumbles into the party and shoots Sachiko. Enraged, Shiro strangles Tamura to death while Kyoichi's mother does the same to him.

In Limbo, Shirō encounters Yukiko, who reveals that she was pregnant with their child when she died. Having sent the baby girl, whom she names Harumi, floating away on the Sanzu River, Yukiko begs Shirō to save the child. Shirō enters Hell and is sentenced to punishment by Lord Enma for his sins. While searching for his daughter in Hell, Shirō witnesses those from his life suffering for their wrongdoings—being boiled and burned, flayed, or dismembered and beaten by ''oni'', only to be revived to suffer anew. Tamura taunts Shirō, saying there is no escape from Hell, before Tamura himself is tortured for his misdeeds. Shirō finds Sachiko, but their reunion is interrupted by Ito, who reveals that Sachiko is his sister: Shirō is actually Ensai's son, and Sachiko is actually Ito's daughter. While caught in a vortex of damned souls, Shirō finds his baby daughter helplessly rotating on a large wheel. Lord Enma gives Shirō one chance to save his daughter, otherwise she too will suffer eternally. As Yukiko, Sachiko, and his mother call to him, Shirō leaps onto the wheel, but cannot reach his daughter.

In the realm of the living, everyone at the party is dead, including Ensai, who has hanged himself after completing his portrait of Hell and setting it on fire. Elsewhere, both Sachiko and Yukiko are seen standing and smiling, calling to Shirō as sister and lover, respectively, with lotus petals falling around them, implying that Shirō has success in saving his daughter, enabling the souls Sachiko, Yukiko and Shirō to be purified to go to Heaven.

It has been 25 years since the 1957 Fillmore High School basketball team won the Pennsylvania state championship. The coach and four of the victors regularly gather to relive the glory of their shining moment.

As teenage teammates they could read each other's moves on the court without fail. As middle-aged men, each is facing his own different mid-life crisis. With a former coach that still addresses problems as if his boys are having a bad game, the friends' longtime loyalty to one another begins to unravel.

George Sitkowski is mayor of Scranton and engaged in a fierce campaign for re-election. James Daley is an overwrought and underpaid school principal while his brother, Tom, has become a drifter with a serious drinking problem. Phil Romano is the wealthiest among them. He often bends the law and even betrays a friend to indulge his own needs, but George badly needs his support.

The intended celebratory nature of this reunion is quickly dissipated. Various contentions arise among the four old teammates, who quickly turn on one another. The coach's bigotry—then and now—and his selfish disregard for fair play are brought again to the surface. The absence of the team's star player, who hates the coach, serves to further spotlight the futility and hollowness of this gathering.

In 1885, in the mountainous wilds of British Columbia, Canada, a male grizzly bear cub is tragically orphaned when his mother is killed by a rockslide after digging and searching for honey for the two to eat. Forced to fend for himself, the cub struggles to find food and shelter.

Elsewhere in the mountains, a male Kodiak bear roams free in the forest as he is unknowingly being pursued and hunted by two trophy hunters, Tom and Bill. Tom attempts to kill the Kodiak, but his gunshot only grazes the bear's shoulder and the wounded bear flees. Shortly after, Tom and Bill hear crashing noises and the sounds of their tied up horses. The men discover two of their three horses missing and claw marks on the trees. Bill finds one horse dead and mutilated, while Tom finds the other one frightened and wounded. While attempting to control the horse, Tom is lifted by the animal's reigns and sprains his leg. Bill makes a promise to hunt and kill the bear for revenge.

The cub later comes across the Kodiak, and, noticing his wound, attempts to help him, but the Kodiak warns the cub away, emphasizing he doesn't need support. The cub persists and approaches him again, managing to soothe his wound by licking it. A friendship forms between the two bears as the Kodiak becomes the cub's foster father, teaching him how to catch salmon and hunt animals such as mule deer for food. That evening, the cub suffers from nightmares where he relives the tragic death of his mother. Later, the Kodiak and the cub encounter a lone female grizzly, whereupon a mating ritual occurs. The Kodiak tries to impress the female by showing off his strength and then tries to mate with her afterwards, but fails.

Determined to find the Kodiak, the two hunters are joined by a third man and his pack of vicious Beaucerons, in addition to Tom's Airedale Terrier. A chase ensues in which both bears are driven toward a cliff with the dog pack pursuing them. While the cub hides in a cave, the Kodiak ferociously fights off the pack. Despite suffering grievous wounds from the dogs, the Kodiak manages to kill some of the dogs before escaping over a pass, leaving the cub behind. The hunters arrive to find some of their dogs, including Tom's dog, mortally wounded. The men spot the lone cub and capture him, taking him back to their camp where he is tethered to a tree and tormented by the men and their remaining dogs. That night, the hunters plot how to massacre the Kodiak, though unbeknownst to them, they are being watched over and stalked by the bear.

The next day, the hunters split up, with Tom manning a spot high on a cliff near a waterfall. He leaves his post to wash up in a small waterfall in the hills. His gun out of reach, Tom suddenly finds himself confronted by the Kodiak, who aggressively roars at the sight of him. Faced with certain death, Tom cowers and expects to be mauled. However, the Kodiak, upon seeing that Tom is at his mercy, refuses to kill him and leaves. Tom, amazed by the bear's act of mercy, attempts to scare him off more quickly by shooting his gun in the air. When Bill joins him, Tom lies that the bear is dead. When Bill catches sight of the Kodiak ascending a scree, he raises his rifle to shoot, only to be intercepted by Tom, who insists they let the animal go free instead. The three hunters return to their camp empty-handed, where they release the cub and then ride off into the wilderness.

Alone again, the cub is soon stalked and attacked by a cougar, who chases the cub until it corners him near a stream. The cub, injured by the cougar's attacks, desperately growls in self-defense. Suddenly, the Kodiak appears behind the cub and saves his life by unleashing a loud roar that chases the cougar away. The cub happily reunites with the Kodiak and runs to his side, where he is comforted. As winter approaches, the two bears find shelter in a cave for hibernation, where they peacefully fall asleep together.

Set in 1999, Tokyo is undergoing a huge re-development program: old suburbs are being demolished and human-made islands are being constructed in Tokyo Bay under the Babylon Project. Dominating the scene is the Ark, a huge man-made island that serves at the Project's nerve center and chief Labor manufacturing facility.

However, several of the Labors being used in Tokyo, specifically those built by Shinohara Heavy Industries, suddenly go haywire even while unattended. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's (TMPD) 2nd Special Vehicles Section (SV2) is assigned to help reel in the errant Labors, but only the SV2's Division II is on duty around the clock (with Division I already on training duties elsewhere). The JGSDF is also preoccupied as they send their own forces to stop an HOS-equipped TYPE-X10 Labor tank prototype.

As Division II goes out on the field, team commander Captain Gotoh, Sgt Asuma Shinohara, and mechanic Shige Shiba work with police Detective Matsui to find further leads on the case. They discover that all the errant Labors, plus other Labors in the Greater Tokyo Area, were equipped with the company's new Hyper Operating System (HOS). Low-frequency resonance emanating from wind-struck high-rise buildings triggers the erratic behavior in these units. To SV2 pilot Noa Izumi's relief, no copies of the software were installed in Division II's AV98 Ingram police Labors. They also learn that HOS programmer Eiichi Hoba, who had committed suicide days before, was obsessed with the Babylon Project's Biblical references (the Ark being alluded to Noah's Ark, for example; his own name. E. Hoba—Jehovah—for another) and planted a self replicating virus in the code that would cause Labors to malfunction. A computer simulation predicts that gale-force winds acting on the Ark could send all the Labors in Tokyo into a massive rampage, especially since the Ark's size and steel framework amplifies the resonance frequencies causing them to reach farther into the city. Worse, the weather bureau announces that a typhoon is expected to hit Tokyo within two days.

Gotoh discreetly gets clearance from the TMPD leadership to destroy the Ark as Shige tries to dig up more evidence of Hoba's guilt to justify the operation. Kanuka Clancy returns from the US to help in the raid. Division II attaches flotation bags to their vehicles and head out to the Ark. Malfunctioning HOS-equipped Labors engage the team as soon as they land on the Ark. Ingram pilots Noa and Ohta, plus Kanuka in a hijacked AV-X0 TYPE-0 police Labor prototype, buys time for Hiromi, Asuma and Shinshi to break into the control room and activate the Ark's self-destruct sequence. However, Kanuka loses control over the TYPE-0 in the chaos because it runs on HOS as well. Trapped by the TYPE-0 in one of the last remaining ledges, Noa climbs out of her damaged Ingram and fires her shotgun into the Labor’s S-RAM system to finally shut it down. With the successful destruction of the Ark, SV2 sends helicopters to rescue the team.

The film opens with a robbery of a liquor store by a group of well-armed young men, as an unseen man listens to a police scanner. That man, wearing a welding mask, suddenly appears behind the store as the men flee, incinerating two of them with a flamethrower. The survivors flee underground, revealing their membership in a street gang led by a charismatic man named X (Van Peebles).

The film alternates scenes between John Eastland (Ginty) and X. Eastland develops a relationship with a dancer named Caroline (Geffner). X announces his plans of leading the gang to rule the streets and the city. The gang robs an armored car and shoots down a police helicopter. A garbage truck passing by driven by Be Gee (Faison) swerves into the crowd of gangsters, scattering them right before the police can arrive. The gang performs a torch-lit execution of the armored car driver in the subway, while X's brother is incinerated by the masked man. Later, the film then follows Eastland and Be Gee, Vietnam veterans, reuniting and driving around town in the garbage truck, visiting the bar where Caroline works, and splitting up as Eastland and Caroline take the garbage truck to Caroline's apartment. Simultaneously, a Mafioso visits the gang's lair in another torch-lit ceremony and offers to sell them heroin, the gang tests a sample on a randomly kidnapped victim, and discover the location of Caroline's home by recognizing the garbage truck.

On a following day, Eastland and Caroline visit a park. The gang attacks Caroline when Eastland is distracted, beating her badly and breaking a leg. Eastland and Be Gee discuss crime later in that bar. The masked man appears in an alley and incinerates two more gangsters. Later on, Caroline and Eastland fight, and Eastland finally brings up vigilante justice with Be Gee. They arm themselves, ambush a group of gangsters in a park, and torture information out of one gangster. Eastland and Be Gee attack one of the gang's warehouses, only to discover that they were interrupting a drug sale between X and the Mafioso. In the ensuing firefight, Be Gee is killed by X, the Mafioso and his crew are blown up along with the money, and Eastland steals the heroin. In retaliation, the gang murders Caroline while Eastland mourns over Be Gee.

Vowing revenge, Eastland installs improvised armor on the garbage truck, while strapping machine guns and antitank rockets to the sides and top. A final showdown ensues in a factory, where Eastland kills most of the gangsters with the armored garbage truck, and incinerates the survivors with a flamethrower. X then chases Eastland around the factory, wounding him in the process and capturing the bag of heroin. The bag explodes, killing X, leaving Eastland to walk away alone from the wreckage.

This play centers on several interconnecting plots; the first forms the framework for the play—the love between a young Athenian man Phaedria and a foreign born courtesan named Thais. Introduced in Act I, Scene i, Phaedria and his wise-cracking slave, Parmeno, discuss Phaedria's situation. Before the curtain rose, Phaedria had been shut out of Thais' house, and he contemplates what he should do. "What, therefore am I to do? Will I not go? Not even now, when I freely summoned? Or is it better for me to prepare myself to endure the insults of whores? She shuts me out, then she calls me back. Should I go back?" (I.i.47–49) Offering philosophical advice, Parmeno encourages the love-sick Phaedria, "If you can go, there's nothing better or braver: but if you begin, and do not stoutly hang on, and when you cannot bear it, when no one seeks you out, with peace not having been made, you go to her freely, saying that you love her, and cannot bear it, you're done: it's over. You're through. She will play with you when she senses you are defeated." (I.i.50–55) He then offers his a famous line:

All these vices are in love: injuries,
Suspicions, enmity, offenses,
War, peace restored. If you think that uncertain things
can be made certain by reason, you'll accomplish nothing more than
if you strived to go insane by sanity.

Parmeno then encourages Phaedria to "not add beyond the troubles love already has," while buying himself back from her for "as little as possible" (I.i.75–80). There is obvious slave imagery here. At the end of the scene, Thais emerges from the house.

It's quite obvious that she's perturbed over her actions that irritated Phaedria, and caused the deliberations of the previous scene. She says, "Oh, miserable me! I fear that Phaedria bore it quite poorly, and accepted the action in another manner than I did it, because yesterday he was not sent in" (I.ii.80–83). Seeing Phaedria and Parmeno in the street, she calls them over to talk; obviously Phaedria, the perfect elegiac lover, is caught up "shaking and trembling all over" at the sight of her, and Parmeno is the hard-nosed interrogator about her intentions. Thais launches into a very lengthy explanation of her history; during this tale, the second subplot is introduced: the attentions of Thraso. He is then asked by Thais to leave town for a few days so that she can pay attention to a rich soldier Thraso. Thraso has a present that she is interested in (this present happens to be a slave girl called Pamphila. She comes from Phaedria's home town and is Thais's sister – this is known to Thais but not to Thraso). In doing this, Thais plans to re-establish contact with Pamphila and to improve her social standing in Athens by returning Pamphila to her Athenian family, represented by her brother Chremes. With their relationship already on the rocks, Phaedria sees this as the last straw. Nonetheless, Phaedria loves her and hopes that she will be his in the end. To show his love for her, he arranges two presents for her before he leaves: an Aethiopian slave girl and a eunuch.

Phaedria has a younger brother, Chaerea, who is just returning from military service when all these events are unfolding. At the port, Chaerea sees Pamphila coming off the boat on her way to be delivered to Thais and he is overcome by her beauty. He tries to follow her but he loses her. Luckily, however, Chaerea runs into his family's servant Parmeno who has just seen Pamphila go by, escorted by Thraso's servant Gnatho. Parmeno reveals to Chaerea that the girl he is chasing is the gift of the soldier to Thais, and that he himself is supposed to deliver a eunuch to Thais's house for Phaedria (one of Phaedria's gifts).

Based on a joking suggestion by Parmeno, Chaerea decides to substitute himself for the eunuch in order to get into Thais's house and he forces Parmeno to cooperate. Since he has been away on military service, Thais and her household staff do not know his face. Chaerea's plan works, and he is accepted as a eunuch and put in charge of guarding the girl with whom he is so strongly infatuated. When he is left alone with her, he rapes her, and then, discovered by Thais's maid Pythias, he flees the scene.

Thais's plan to get in good favour with Pamphila's Athenian family seems to be ruined. At this point Phaedria returns and discovers what his brother has done. Chaerea is dragged back to Thais's house and explains his love for Pamphila and agrees to marry her. Chremes is grateful for the return of his long-lost sister, Phaedria and Thais are reconciled, and the soldier and Phaedria agree to share Thais.

''Serious Sam Advance'' is non-canon. It begins with recounting how Sam "Serious" Stone returned from a time-travel mission to Abu Simbel in 2113. Scientists assessed the Time-Lock technology that Sam used to travel through time. Initially, they could only use it to send people to and from ancient Egypt but, in 2020, became able to control the time and place of travellers' destinations. Using this feature, agents were sent to various ancient civilisations to investigate whether Mental—the antagonist in the ''Serious Sam'' series—was trying to release his horde on them to alter the course of history. This programme was successful for two years until three agents failed to return, as did the rescue team sent after them. Sam, the only survivor from previous encounters with Mental's forces, was thus selected to travel to ancient Rome in 512 BCE.

Sam initially arrives in ancient Egypt at the Temple of Herkat and fights his way through enemies sent by Mental, crossing the desert and eventually encountering and defeating the Sirian and sends him to ancient Rome instead. He again defeats several waves of enemies and reaches Caesar's Palace. In it, Sam eliminates the Wolfinator, marking the end of Mental's attempt to rule over ancient Rome. Wishing to take a vacation on Maui, Sam enters a nearby Time-Lock to return home.

"Hypnos" is a first-person narrative, written from the perspective of an unnamed character living in Kent and later London, England. The narrator writes that he fears sleep, and is resolved to write his story down lest it drive him further mad, regardless of what people think after reading it.

The narrator, a sculptor, recounts meeting a mysterious man in a railway station. The moment the man opened his "immense, sunken, and widely luminous eyes", the narrator knew that the stranger would become his friend-–"the only friend of one who had never possessed a friend before." In the eyes of the stranger, he witnessed important knowledge of the mysteries he always sought to learn.

From this point on, he would touch his friend and sculpt him daily. At night they would commence their adventures, exploring worlds beyond human comprehension. Over time, the narrator's companion begins to speak of using their ability to transcend into the unknown as a way to rule the universe (via a set of drugs). The narrator is frightened by the prospect and disavows such hubris to the reader.

Soon the narrator is off on a foray with his friend, travelling through a void that he explains is beyond human sensation. Passing through several barriers, eventually the narrator comes to one he cannot cross, though his friend does. Opening his "physical eyes", the narrator wakes up and awaits the return of his friend, who awakes severely shaken and reticent, warning only that they must avoid sleep at all cost.

From then on, with the aid of drugs, the two avoid sleep, as each time they succumb, they both seem to rapidly age and are plagued by nightmares that the narrator refuses to explain. The story ends with the narrator describing how one night his friend fell into a "deep-breathing sleep" and was impossible to arouse. The narrator shrieks, faints, and awakes surrounded by police and neighbors, who inform him that his friend was not real. There is only a bust of his friend in his room, engraved with the Greek word: ΥΠΝΟΣ (Hypnos).

As the story opens, a banker recalls the occasion of a bet he had made fifteen years before. Guests at a party that he was hosting that day fell into a discussion of capital punishment; the banker viewed it as more humane than life imprisonment, while a young lawyer disagreed, insisting that he would choose life in prison rather than death. They agreed to a bet: if the lawyer could spend fifteen years in total isolation, the banker would pay him two million rubles. The lawyer would have no direct contact with any other person, but could write notes to communicate with the outside world and receive whatever comforts he desired.

Confined to a lodge on the banker's property, the lawyer suffers from loneliness and depression at first but eventually begins to read and study in a wide range of subjects. As the lawyer takes advantage of the solitude to educate and amuse himself in various ways over the years, the banker's fortunes begin to decline. The banker realizes that if he loses, paying off the bet will lead to bankruptcy.

In the early hours of the day when the fifteen-year period is to expire, the banker resolves to kill the lawyer, but finds him greatly emaciated and sleeping at a table. A note written by the lawyer reveals that he has chosen to abandon the bet, having learned that material goods are fleeting and that divine salvation is worth more than money. Shocked and moved after reading the note, the banker kisses the lawyer on the head and returns to bed. When the banker wakes up later that morning, a watchman reports that the lawyer has climbed out the window and fled the property, forfeiting the bet. To prevent the spread of rumors, the banker locks the note in his safe.

The book opens with Mary Russell receiving a telegram to come immediately to Devon and to bring her compass. Initially Mary is reluctant to abandon her academic studies in Oxford to assist Sherlock, but she finally complies. This tug and pull of the two individuals in their own professional lives erupts throughout the book to show each person's independence, yet reliance on each other.

Sherlock has been called in to solve a murder on Dartmoor. For Sherlock, it's familiar territory; it's where he solved the case of The Hound of the Baskervilles. This time round there are tales of a ghostly hound out on the moors accompanying an equally ghostly carriage. And naturally, the story is populated with sinister local characters.

The moor is central to the story, brooding over it as the moor broods over the surrounding landscape. It also has Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould as a central character. He has a strong intellectual curiosity and is the driving force behind the investigation.

Laurie King uses many of the elements of The Hound of the Baskervilles. These elements are introduced deliberately on the part of the criminals and there are echoes of the original story. The way that Holmes reacts to the many mentions of the original case, with a mixture of pride and exasperation, allows for some very humorous moments.

One evening, while being physically abused by his father, David "Davy" Rice unexpectedly teleports (or "jumps") and finds himself in the local library, the Stanville Library. This is a place that Davy is familiar with and spends a lot of time in, which is why he was able to easily teleport there. The origin of this power is never explained, but he ends up using this power continually throughout the novel. Vowing never to return to his father's house, Davy makes his way to New York City. After being mugged and discovering that he can't get a job without a birth certificate and/or social security number, Davy robs a local bank by teleporting inside the safe, stealing nearly a million dollars. He then begins a life of reading, attending plays, and dining in fancy restaurants.

At a play, he meets a 21-year-old woman named Millie Harrison, and they spend some time touring New York before she returns to college in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Davy later visits her in Oklahoma, and they attend a party, where he accidentally runs into Millie's ex-boyfriend, Mark, who tries to fight him, forcing David to jump Mark away, unnoticed. Feeling bad for Davy, Millie invites him to stay the night at her place. The two officially start a romantic relationship and make love. Millie and Davy continue to see each other and begin to fall in love. Davy also manages to locate and reunite with his long-lost mother, Mary Niles. Mary left the family after being severely beaten by David's father, and all her attempts to contact David over the years were intercepted by his father.

The New York police start investigating Davy after he saves a neighbor from an attack by jumping her abusive husband to a park; the husband turns out to be a police officer. The investigation drives Davy to move to Oklahoma, where he gets an apartment near Millie. One night while Davy is out, the police are in his New York City apartment when Millie calls. The police inform her of their investigation of him. Davy confronts Millie and tries to explain, but Millie breaks up with him and tells him to go. Out of anger, Davy jumps in front of her, back to his apartment in Stillwater.

After a few weeks, Davy finds himself missing Millie and starts receiving letters from her, a way of reconciling.

Mary, who was on a business trip, is murdered by terrorists when her plane is hijacked. Davy sets out to find Rashid Matar, the terrorist responsible for his mother's death. Davy starts jumping to Algeria to search for Matar, having to dodge the police almost every time he is there. While at Mary's funeral, Davy meets his father for the first time in years and is interrogated by the police again. While he is searching for the terrorist, he and Millie go out on their first date in months together. Davy tells her everything, even the bank robbery, which she's a little upset about. Despite everything that he has told her, his ability to jump and the money he stole, Millie confesses that she misses him and is deeply in love with him. Davy and Millie officially restart their relationship.

However, the National Security Agency, led by veteran agent Brian Cox, becomes suspicious when it finds out he can get from Algeria to the United States in only a few hours. When he is questioned, Davy jumps out of the NSA office, witnessed by Cox and several other agents. Cox and the NSA then become determined to capture Davy so they can use his powers. David has Millie go stay with her parents, while at the same time they see each other in secret. After numerous failures to grab Davy, Cox takes Millie hostage in order to get to him. Davy strikes back by grabbing Cox, and later captures Matar and his abusive father—thereby putting him in the unique position of controlling the fates of all three of his tormentors.

This experience has profound effects on all four of them. Davy finds himself unable to kill his captives despite their crimes against him and ultimately releases them. Davy turns Matar over to the authorities, threatening to come after him again if he isn't found guilty of his crimes. His father is forced to acknowledge his abuse of Davy and Mary and enters alcoholic counseling. Cox is forced to see the similarities between his actions and those of the terrorist and the wife-beating alcoholic, has Millie released, and agrees to stop hunting Davy. Both Davy and Millie go away with each other.

Afterward, Millie comforts Davy as he realizes that he cannot escape his pain through teleportation or vigilante action, and he enters counseling as well.

The Committee on Human Endurance researches the human body's ability to survive pain and physical stress as part of the space program. Dr. Henry Hallson, an anthropologist on the committee, has designed a series of anonymous questionnaires to screen people with greater survival capacity, using other committee members as preliminary subjects.

Hallson reveals his findings at a meeting with chairman and biologist Dr. Jim Tanner, geneticist Dr. Margery Lansing, physicist Dr. Carl Melnicker, biologist Dr. Talbot Scott, Dr. Norman Van Zandt, and government liaison Arthur Nordlund. Hallson announces that someone on the committee possesses a super-intellect beyond human measurement, capable of controlling other human minds, including those of the committee. When no one admits to having Hallson's theorized powers, Dr. Melnicker suggests a telekinesis test using a simple psi wheel. Stating that the test subject will never reveal himself, Hallson insists that all of them concentrate on it together, which sends the wheel spinning.

Later that night, Hallson is found murdered in the laboratory's human centrifuge, with the name "Adam Hart" scrawled on a piece of paper in his office. Hallson's widow Sally Hallson tells Jim Tanner that "Adam Hart" was the name of her husband's childhood friend. Tanner speculates that a superhuman could exist with capabilities far in advance of normal humans, but Talbot Scott denies the possibility.

As the police investigate Hallson's murder, Tanner immediately becomes the prime suspect when it is found that he apparently lied about his distinguished academic credentials. In fact, all records documenting his past have been inexplicably erased. Tanner then suffers bizarre hallucinations and narrowly survives a psychic assault on his life. Desperate to uncover the truth, he travels to Hallson's hometown and learns that Adam Hart is a superhuman, with different people providing different descriptions of his appearance and others still obeying commands that Hart gave them years earlier.

As Tanner and Lansing search for the other committee members, Melnicker is murdered while Nordlund apparently survives another psychic assault by Hart. Dr. Van Zandt is revealed to be an ally of Hart, but is also murdered. Surviving yet another attack, Tanner returns to the research center and confronts Talbot Scott with the police close behind. Scott believes that Tanner is a superhuman and pleads for his life, but panics and is shot by the police.

In a final showdown, Tanner confronts Arthur Nordlund, who faked his own attack and is revealed to be Adam Hart. Hart unleashes another psychic assault on Tanner, but Tanner instead kills Hart with his own awakened psychic powers. Tanner realizes that ''he'' was the superhuman uncovered by Hallson's tests, and that Hart was trying to eliminate any competition from others like himself.

Buster Casey is born in the rural town of Middleton with the senses of smell and taste far more advanced than other humans. He acquires the nickname Rant from a childhood prank involving animal organs which results in numerous people becoming ill. The sound of the victims vomiting resembles the word ''rant'', which becomes a local synonym for vomit and therefore Buster's nickname.

As a child, Rant discovers a massive wealth that turns the small town's economy on its head. He becomes obsessed with getting bitten by rabid animals along with venomous snakes and spiders. After his first bite from a black widow spider, Rant discovers that toxic spider bites cause him to get an erection. He uses this effect to leave school and eventually threatens his way to an early diploma and a rather large check that he uses to leave town. When Rant arrives in the city, it becomes clear to the reader that the novel takes place in a dystopian future, where urban dwellers are forcefully divided by curfew into two separate classes: the respectable Daytimers and the oppressed Nighttimers.

Rant becomes a Nighttimer and finds himself swept up in the Nighttimer lifestyle that revolves around "Party Crashing", a covert demolition derby played out on city streets at night. The game is organized by an unknown entity and is set during a designated window of time. The object of the game is to crash, not too forcefully, into other players who sport a certain "flag", such as a Christmas tree on their car's roof or the words "Just Married" scrawled on their vehicle's rear windshield. Rant meets Echo Lawrence, a fellow Crasher. She and Rant fall in love. Rant starts a nationwide rabies epidemic that eventually erupts into zombie-invasion-like proportions that calls for those infected with rabies to be shot and killed on sight.

Rant eventually dies during a Party Crashing event. His death is viewed and listened to by millions on national television and the ''Graphic Traffic'' radio show. However, when the car is pried open, his body is missing. After his "death", many interviewees share their speculations about Rant's strange fate and its implications for society along with the rabies outbreak.

Some interviewees and friends of Rant speculate that crashing a car while in a given state of mind will jar a person outside of time. Once this is accomplished, they can then go back and kill off all of their ancestors, in turn making them immortal. Or they can, through incest, make themselves into something more than human. The latter is believed to have happened to Green Taylor Simms, a fellow Party Crasher, who is implied to be Buster Casey in some form.

The story opens at a tiny island called Morrowland (original name: Lummerland), which has just enough space for a a small palace, a train station and rails all around the island, a convenience store, a small house, a king, two subjects, a locomotive named Emma, and an engine driver by the name of Luke (Lukas). One day, the postman - who has to come by ship - drops off a package with a nearly illegible address with the names ''Mrs. Krintuuth'' and ''Zorroulend'', and a large 13 on the back. After a futile search for the addressee all over the island, the people open the package - and find to their immense surprise a black baby inside. After the surprise has died down, the baby is adopted by the islanders and is named Jim Button.

But as he grows up, the King begins to worry about the fact that there is no space to let Jim live on the island once he's grown up, and he announces to Luke that Emma has to be removed. Luke, upset about this decision, decides to leave the island with his locomotive, but Jim (who had accidentally listened to Luke as he related his sorrows to Emma) decides to come along. Converting Emma into a makeshift ship, they sail off the island in the night and eventually arrive at the coast of China.

When they arrive in Ping, the capital, they win the friendship of a tiny great-grandchild named Ping Pong, and from him they learn that the Emperor is in mourning because his daughter, Li Si, has been kidnapped. Luke and Jim offer their help, and while investigating the circumstances of Li Si's disappearance they stumble upon several names which are directly connected to Jim's mysterious arrival on Morrowland: Mrs. Grindtooth (Frau Mahlzahn), the Wild 13, and the name Sorrowland. Now the two friends have one more reason to go to the Dragon City (which is located in Sorrowland) and confront Mrs. Grindtooth.

After a long and very hazardous journey - in which they make two new friends: Mr. Tur Tur the Giant (who is actually a "Scheinriese", an illusionary giant), and Nepomuk the half-dragon - they arrive in the Dragon City and free Princess Li Si and a large number of children, who had all been kidnapped by the Wild 13, a gang of pirates, and sold to Mrs. Grindtooth so she could torture them by "playing" school. They take the dragon with them as they make the journey back on the Yellow River, which has its origin right in the Dragon City. Making it back to China, where they receive a triumphal welcome, they are surprised by two startling news: that Mrs. Grindtooth is to turn into a Golden Dragon of Wisdom, and that the other inhabitants of Morrowland want them back on the island!

With a last advice given by Mrs. Grindtooth and the generous assitance by the Emperor, Luke and Jim come into the possession of a swimming island, which should solve the problem of Jim's future residence, and after a cordial welcome back on Morrowland, Jim and Li Si become engaged, and Jim gets a baby locomotive, which he names Molly. But there are yet many questions to solve, and these call for another adventure...

''Fool on the Hill'' is about a man “who tells lies for a living” (aka a fiction writer) and his fantastical year as a writer-in-residence at Cornell University. S.T. George (the professional liar) finds himself the hero of a story started long ago by Mr. Sunshine, a storyteller who “writes” without paper. Our hero’s story will have love and loss, princesses and dragons, and of course, an epic battle to see if the knight slays the dragon. S.T. George isn’t on his own, though, there is a whole host of magical, eccentric, and all too real characters to help the story along. The Rat Frat led by Chief Rat, Jack Baron; the Bohemians, a group of Harley-and horseback-riding students; a dog name Luther and his cat friend Blackjack; Sprites that fly miniature planes and watch over the humans of Cornell; the villain Grub; and two intriguing women, the mysterious Calliope and the lovely Aurora. Will, Mr. Sunshine’s hero, rescue the princess and save the day, or does his love of Greek tragedy have another end in store for George.

--taken in part from Warner Books mass paperback edition.

The novel is the story of two authors, the buffoonish Prof. Stephen Titus George and his artful adversary Mr. Sunshine. Both live in Ithaca, New York.

During a particularly cold New York winter, George starts to suspect that he is not himself but the creation of someone else, someone he calls "Mr. Sunshine." Sunshine and George enter into a battle of wits to determine who should be called "creator." Did George create himself? Did Mr. Sunshine create George? What is the meaning of collaboration?

Throughout the novel colorful characters on the campus of Cornell University appear. There is the mysterious Cornell student Aurora Borealis Smith with whom Stephen Titus George falls in love. There is the Norse God Ragnarok wielding his Pollaxe. There are the Bohemians, a dog named Luther, a cat named Blackjack, Puck, and Calliope, a fire-breathing paper dragon. And let's not forget evil forces like Rasferret the Grub, a mannequin called Rubbermaid, and an army of rats.

And so the drama then unfolds as it tells the time-tested story of the battle between Good and Evil and the efforts of the two authors to write the story towards either a happy ending or a tragic Greek drama.

Scientists Dr. Erik von Steiner (Preston Foster), Dr. Steve Connors (Philip Carey), and Carol White (Merry Anders) are testing their time-viewing device, drawing enormous amounts of power. Danny McKee (Steve Franken), a technician from the power plant, has been sent to tell them to shut down their experiment. During the test, odd shadows quickly cross the room immediately before the screen shows a stark, barren landscape. Danny discovers the screen has become a portal and steps through.

Inasmuch as the setting is becoming unstable, the others enter the portal to rescue him. The portal disappears, stranding them. Pursued by hostile primitives they seek refuge in a cave, which they discover leads to an underground city – all that is left of civilization in a future devastated by nuclear war.

The year is A.D. 2071. City leader Dr. Varno (John Hoyt) explains that Earth is unable to support life, and that the residents, along with their androids, are frantically working on a spacecraft which will take them to a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. The four time travelers, told they may not join that space voyage, are however allowed to work on recreating their time portal to return to their own time. Before the residents can lift off, the degenerate mutant humans break in, destroy the ship, and encroach on the city proper.

Dr. Varno determines that now the only hope is the time portal, so he commits the city's remaining resources to help von Steiner, Connors, White, and McKee rebuild the time portal. They feverishly work as the mutants continue their invasion. Along with a few people from the future, the four travelers escape back to the present just ahead of the mutants, leaving a rear guard of androids. One person throws an object back through the portal which damages the equipment on the other side and shuts down the portal.

The survivors and their futuristic companions return to the lab, only to make a strange discovery. Their past selves are still in the lab, yet to pass through the portal, but they appear frozen. The travelers then realize that they are experiencing time at an accelerated rate; the rest of the world, including their past selves, is moving in extremely slow motion. Their only option is to travel to the date the portal had briefly been set to before being more firmly set to A.D. 2071. That previous date is over 100,000 years in the future, but the screen is, as before, dark; what lies ahead is unknown. They quickly cross the room, casting the shadows which had been seen before.

When the last one goes through, the screen flashes on briefly and shows the travelers walking in a clearing with trees and grass; the surface of the Earth habitable again. They begin to build a future there. The film then shows their past selves moving at normal speed again, repeating their actions at an ever accelerating rate to a resounding musical score; the sequence of events of the entire movie rapidly cycles, repeating with ever briefer and fewer clips, leaving the viewer in a time-loop until it abruptly ends (without further explanation) with a shot of the Andromeda Galaxy.

''Extermination'' takes place on December 24, 2005, at a top secret American research facility in Antarctica. The game focuses on U.S. Marine Corp's Force Recon member Sergeant Dennis Riley, as part of "Team Red Light". His squad receives a distress call from the aforementioned base named Fort Stewart. The distress call requests an immediate air strike on the base. Instead, Team Red Light is sent in via C-17 to investigate. En route, the plane malfunctions, scattering the team and crashing into the tundra. All are ordered to regroup at Ground Facility Building B.

Dennis and teammate Roger Grigman arrive outside the fort. They enter the fort through the ventilation shaft. After discovering that it "looks like a battlefield," they try to get the drawbridge lowered to proceed to Building B. After Dennis lowers the drawbridge, Roger comes under attack by Hydras (in the North American release, these enemies are referred to as, "Bugs,"). He becomes infected and rapidly mutates in front of Dennis. A mysterious woman in a contamination suit arrives and fires at Roger, seemingly killing him. She throws Dennis an extra magazine for his rifle, and an MTS vaccine, shouting: "Use it if you don't want to end up like your friend!" Thereafter, she orders him to tell his team to escape the fort.

Dennis crosses the drawbridge and pursues the mysterious woman, who has initiated a lock-down protocol. Eventually, he gets the door open and finally meets the woman face-to-face without her mask. The woman is Cindy Chen, whom Dennis was concerned about when coming to Fort Stewart. She was the girlfriend of Dennis' fallen comrade, Andrew, whom he served with in Cambodia. She has not spoken to Dennis since she received the news during that tour of duty.

Cindy tells Dennis that the Marines must leave the fort as soon as possible and to "tell your government that their dirty little secret has become a nightmare." Dennis heads toward Building B and is stopped by a journalist named Travis Miller, who reveals in conversation that he has been undercover for five years, then gives Dennis his card. He finds the Water Filtration Plant on his way to Building B and meets Carl Morris, an overseer of the project that started the entire thing. He tells Dennis that "there's something strange about the water, though you can't tell by looking at it." Before he can finish, Carl succumbs to his injuries. Dennis, confused, advances to Building B.

Once there, Dennis encounters Major Mike Madigan, who briefs Dennis on the situation thus far. He says that the Pentagon's decision is to now destroy the facility. To that end, three detonators need to be activated. However, the detonators can only be activated manually. Madigan remarks that he has already dispatched a few members of the team, but they had trouble. The remainder of the team goes to the helicopter outside, where a mutated human is drinking from a water tower. After taking it down, the water inside the tower moves around as though alive, but just when it attacks, it freezes in place. Madigan sends Dennis off, alone, to activate the detonators.

Inside Building B, a woman named Sonja Leone tells him that the area holding the detonators can be unlocked from Building B with metal tags. Upon arrival, Cindy tells Dennis to leave her alone. Dennis, knowing full well why she is so dismissive, is irritated and tells Cindy: "On that day Andrew sacrificed his life to save mine. Now I've sworn to protect yours, no matter what happens."

Dennis receives a distress call from a Team Red Light marine. Dennis picks up their trail only to find them dead. He acquires the metal tag, and heads to the Level 2 detonator center, which Cindy mentions as having little power and no lighting whatsoever. He has another run-in with Miller, who says that he has all the evidence and information that he needs, and is on his way out. Miller is not seen or heard from for the remainder of the game. Although, in journals scattered throughout the game, it is revealed that others escaped with Miller from Antarctica.

Dennis comes across a wounded Marine, Gary. Giving Dennis a metal tag and later heading on to Building B, Dennis radioes the number to Cindy, and he recollects the earlier battle with the humanoid mutant on the water tower and how the water had frozen as it reached out. Cindy foreshadows this as a clue. Dennis continues to the Level 1 detonator center and uncovers documents revealing that this plague is really caused by a bacterium dubbed HO213, and grows rapidly on contact with water. He reads on about how further testing revealed a pivotal weakness; all traces of the bacteria strain are wiped out when the master strain is destroyed. Once the detonator is activated, Dennis radios Cindy who immediately informs him of Sonja's recent disappearance, later found dead.

Dennis and Cindy deduce that the bacterium is susceptible to cold. The cold itself will not actually destroy it, rather preserve it in a state of cryogenic suspension. However, if the master strain (Origin) were to be destroyed, the strain would die out on its own. Cindy checks her computer and tells Dennis that the HO213 requires a certain temperature in order to be incubated. The infested water heading towards the coolant is where Major Madigan and his team is heading. Their goal was to sabotage the coolant reactor, letting H0213 freeze out to temporarily buy time. Dennis rushes to his team's aid.

On the way, Dennis comes across an injured Filel (The game had the character's name spelled and pronounced Filel at first, and then it was changed to Felil mid-game), who dies from a gunshot wound, but not before telling Dennis that Madigan had shot him. Dennis climbs a small mountain and meets up with Madigan, who orders Dennis to retrieve an explosive device made by Gary that's in the downed C-17. Dennis obtains the explosive and receives a communique from Madigan, instructing him to regroup. Seconds later, a scream is heard.

Dennis takes the elevator to Madigan's position, and he is shocked to find Roger, now hideously mutated into a superior fighting machine. Dennis engages Roger in a knockdown drag-out fight and emerges victorious. He comes across a gravely injured Madigan, who tells him that Felil was a CIA agent and the only person who was supposed to come back alive. Madigan reveals that he knew about the bacteria the entire time, and was given a secret objective by the government to destroy it. Other factions in the government, such as the CIA, ordered Felil to preserve the bacteria. Madigan takes on the suicidal task of delivering the explosive to the coolant reactor, but not before leaving Dennis the new leader of Team Red Light.

Meanwhile, back in Building B, Gary tells Cindy that he was there when Andrew had died, mentioning that "The fighting was so fierce that Dennis couldn't even bring back his body." Cindy confesses that when Dennis had informed her, she said things to Dennis she later came to regret. However, each time she had seen Dennis, she could not bring herself to apologize. Cindy and Gary agree that they are relying on Dennis to help them come out alive, and resolve to support him.

Dennis arrives in Building B and hands Cindy the disk given to him by Madigan. Cindy deciphers it, whereupon she learns that project "Extermination" is a test of H0213's potential. This entails that everybody in the facility, including the Marines, are "guinea pigs" to the experiment, both to test infection against civilians and fighting capabilities when engaging the Marines. Dennis heads towards the last detonator, and is stopped at gunpoint by Dr. Yan Falken, a scientist who is obsessed with the bacteria, calling it his son. The room quakes and falling debris fatally strikes Falken. Dennis activates the last detonator and hurries back to Cindy and Gary who have boarded an LCAC Carrier.

The facility explodes, and the master DNA strain Origin takes the form of a gigantic aquatic creature, and chases the LCAC holding the trio. Dennis mans the machine guns on the vessel and takes down Origin's fish form. It changes form into a gigantic beast and another battle commences on the LCAC, with Dennis the victor. The Origin then takes one last stand and creates a doppelganger of the Marine who caused the strain so much trouble. Dennis triumphs over the odds, ensuring the destruction of the master DNA strand and silencing the threat of the HO213 once and for all.

After a brief conversation over the victory, Cindy apologizes to Dennis about the things she said to him. Dennis assures her that it is alright, as he also hated himself for never being able to help her. He continues to say: "So from now on if you ever need anything from me, you let me know and I'll be there. This time, I promise..."

John Lorenzen is an astronomer from Lunopolis who is recruited by the Lagrange Institute for the second expedition to Troas. At this time, Earth is still recovering from a two-century-long era of war and chaos that began with the Soviet conquest of North America in World War III and ended with the unification of the Solar System at the conclusion of a war between Mars and Venus. Twenty-two years after the discovery of a faster-than-light drive, Troas is the only Earthlike world to be discovered, and enthusiasm for interstellar travel is waning. If Troas is not opened to colonization, humanity may give up interstellar travel altogether.

The effort to mount a second expedition to Troas is plagued with difficulties. The Lagrange Institute is unable to charter a starship and must build its own, the ''Henry Hudson''. The construction of the ''Hudson'' is hampered by delays, cost overruns, and at least one act of outright sabotage. The voyage of the ''Hudson'' to Troas is also troubled, as tension rises among the members of the expedition. Edward Avery, the expedition's psychomed, is unable to maintain group harmony aboard the ship, and at least one fight breaks out.

Upon arrival at Troas, the crew of the ''Hudson'' find no trace of the first expedition. After it is determined that there are no harmful microorganisms on Troas, a base camp is established on the planet. Eighteen days later, a group of aliens appears. Avery is assigned to learn the aliens' language, and he reports that it is extremely difficult to understand. He is eventually able to determine that the aliens are called the Rorvan, and that they are native to Troas. This is bad news for the expedition, since planets with native intelligent species are off limits to colonization. The Rorvan invite a small group of humans, including Avery and Lorenzen, to accompany them to their settlement.

As the group of humans and Rorvan travel, Lorenzen listens to Avery's conversations with the aliens and realizes that their language is not nearly as difficult to understand as the psychomed claims. By the time they reach the Rorvan settlement, Lorenzen has learned through his eavesdropping that Avery and the Rorvan are conspiring to deceive the other humans. When Lorenzen finally confronts Avery, the psychomed admits that he and his clique within Earth's government have been deliberately stifling interstellar travel, since they feel that humanity is not ready for it. The members of the first expedition were interned after returning to the Solar System, and the Rorvan are not native to Troas after all. Avery pleads with Lorenzen to help him maintain the deception, but Lorenzen refuses. He wants humanity to expand into the galaxy.

The narrator offers a story to explain why a "draught of cool air" is the most detestable thing to him. His tale begins in the spring of 1923, when he was looking for housing in New York City. He finally settles in a converted brownstone on West Fourteenth Street. Investigating a chemical leak from the floor above, he discovers that the inhabitant directly overhead is a strange, old, and reclusive physician. One day the narrator suffers a heart attack, and remembering that a doctor lives overhead, he climbs the stairs and meets Dr. Muñoz for the first time.

The doctor demonstrates supreme medical skill, and saves the narrator with a combination of medications. The fascinated narrator returns regularly to sit and learn from the doctor. As their talks continue, it becomes increasingly evident that the doctor has an obsession with defying death through all available means.

The doctor's room is kept at approximately 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) using an ammonia-based refrigeration system; the pumps are driven by a gasoline engine. As time goes on, the doctor's health declines and his behaviour becomes increasingly eccentric. The cooling system is continuously upgraded, to the point where some areas of his rooms are sub-freezing, until one night when the pump breaks down.

Without explanation, the panic-stricken doctor frantically implores his friend to help him keep his body cool. Unable to repair the machine until morning, they resort to having the doctor stay in a tub full of ice. The narrator spends his time replenishing the ice, but soon is forced to employ someone else to do it. When he finally locates competent mechanics to repair the pump, it is too late.

He arrives at the apartment in time to see the rapidly decomposing remains of the doctor, and a rushed, "hideously smeared" letter. The narrator reads it; to his horror, he learns that Dr. Muñoz died 18 years previously. Refusing to surrender to death, he maintained the semblance of life past the point of death using various methods, depending upon refrigeration to retard decomposition.

While a car dealer, Jack Leverett (Greg Grunberg), is cheating on his wife with a woman named Michelle Cullman (Susan Ward), he finds a hidden camera and, fighting for the camera, accidentally kills her. The following day, Monk (Tony Shalhoub) tells his therapist, Dr. Charles Kroger (Stanley Kamel), that he will go on his first vacation since the murder of his wife Trudy. Later, Monk goes to the crime scene to investigate, finding watch glass fragments. Monk is informed by Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Lieutenant Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) that a film about him will be produced. As method actor David Ruskin (Stanley Tucci)—set to play Monk in the film—is there to observe his mannerisms, Monk tries to impress him.

The next day, Ruskin follows Monk again as he investigates a case at a pawnshop in which its owner was shot during a robbery. Monk is intrigued as to why the burglar entered through the wall and only stole a small amount of money and a wristwatch. Natalie (Traylor Howard) and Monk find the murder weapon. Monk notices the same glitter on the firearm as he had found in Cullman's hair, deducing that the same person committed both crimes, stealing the watch to replace his own broken watch. Meanwhile, Natalie first worries that Ruskin's presence can harm Monk, then that the reverse is true.

Later, Stottlemeyer and Disher attend the film's production. Natalie's warning is right: Ruskin has so adopted Monk's persona that he is distracted by minor details of the set and is unable to complete the scene. He leaves the studio, goes to Monk's house to learn why Monk does his job, and explores Monk's files on Trudy's murder, grieving Monk. An afflicted Monk goes to Natalie's house, where he solves the case when he sees a note that Julie tore up to prevent Natalie from reading it. The pawnshop is adjacent to a restaurant where clients are drawn on the wall each night by an artist, and it was the restaurant side of the wall that was significant. On the evening of the first crime, Leverett and Cullman were sketched together while dining there, and Leverett later returned to destroy that evidence.

Ruskin goes to Trudy's murder scene, where he is mistaken for Monk and told that Leverett is "the killer". When Stottlemeyer and Disher arrive at Leverett's business to arrest him for killing Cullman and the pawnshop owner, Ruskin has already arrived and is holding him hostage for killing Trudy. Monk enters and stops Ruskin, but is emotionally shaken when Ruskin says he could have saved Trudy. At the end, he talks with Dr. Kroger and cancels his holiday trip.

Nigel (Morten Vogelius) is an incompetent criminal who flees his native England to Copenhagen in order to escape the loan sharks who are after him. He and his wife Maria (Jette Philipsen) shack up at a hotel, while each struggles separately with a drug problem. Maria manages to get a straight job, and Nigel gets a gig storing illegal goods for a local crime boss known as the President (Peter Ottesen). Things heat up when Nigel falls for Tanya (Gry Bay), a hooker who works for the President, and their affair makes him ever more distant from Maria. The stage is set for a sex and violence-fueled descent into mayhem as the plot twists and secrets are revealed. Maria gets pregnant and Nigel starts to snap, and the only sane one seems to be Jimmy, Nigel's existential pot dealer. Dark humor and a driving pop-rock score complete the dark and atmospheric story.

After serving a five-year prison sentence for marijuana possession, Daniel "Poke" Jackson returns to his hometown in Texas where he is greeted by the man who convicted him, Sheriff Duke Calley. Poke assures Duke that he will soon be leaving to go to California, but Duke warns Poke that he is under close watch. Poke calls his old girlfriend Mary Lee Carter and arranges a meeting to see their son Kevin, whom he was never met. Duke warns him off and Poke discovers that Duke and Mary Lee are now sleeping together. However, Poke visits her anyway to confront her and the two end up making love.

Later, Duke arrives at the mansion of county political boss C.J. Crane and is assigned to guard congressman-elect Jesus Mendez, who is scheduled to speak at a barbecue. After Mendez delivers the speech, he is shot and killed by a man in a police uniform. Poke watches as Duke kills the assassin, extracts an envelope and hides it in a trashcan. Duke later returns and retrieves the envelope but finds it empty, and concludes that only Poke could have witnessed the incident and taken the contents. An alert goes out to arrest Poke for marijuana possession. Meanwhile, Poke shows his friend and auto mechanic Boogie the $25,000 he found in the envelope. When Duke's deputy Lenny arrives at the garage looking for Poke, Boogie stalls him long enough for Poke to escape on a motorcycle, initiating a police chase. When two deputies are killed in the chase, Poke becomes wanted for murder.

Poke asks junk dealer Cloetus for refuge and he agrees. Early the next morning, Boogie collapses at the door, names Duke as his assailant and dies. Poke hides in the back of Cloetus's truck and manages to get through the police cordon and into Mary Lee's house, where he explains Duke's role in the Mendez assassination to her. Poke, Mary Lee and Kevin then escape in a stolen police car. Another chase ensues which ends with Poke driving into a pond and getting captured. While being driven to the police station, Poke tells Lenny about Duke's role in the assassination. Duke retrieves the $25,000 and begins beating Poke, but when Lenny intervenes Poke is able to escape. Crane tells Duke that the sheriff's career is over unless he retrieves the money. Poke and his family reach the home of Bull Parker, a former bootlegger and family friend, who offers to drive them out of state in his truck which has been customized to evade the law. When Bull runs a roadblock another chase begins, during which Bull falls from the truck but tells Poke to drive on without him. After several police cars end up wrecked the only opposing vehicle remaining is driven by Duke, who tries to run Poke's truck off a steep mountain road but ends up going over the cliff himself. With Duke dead, Poke decides to return to town to clear his name.

The game is set in the show's fourth season of the television show ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''.

Matthias, Percy, and Alia, (from ''Among the Betrayed'') are introduced once again. At Niedler School they are apprehended along with many other children and put in a truck to be taken, supposedly, to a work camp. They are saved when Matthias finds a nail, slashes the tires and crashes into a tree that falls, injuring Alia in the process, and allows them to escape. They run immediately to the forest, and Percy is shot in a crossfire between Population Police and Rebels while they are trying to find a place to hide. Matthias is able to drag Percy and Alia, now both critically ill, into a rebel hideout cabin, whose dwellers are killed by the Population Police, and then he runs to Mr. Hendrick's cottage to get help.

He returns from Mr. Hendrick's cottage with Mrs. Talbot, a talented doctor and wife of a rebel leader, Mr. Talbot. Finding Alia and Percy missing, Matthias then ends up saving a Population Police Officer Tidwell, called Tiddy by his friends, from a deadly shootout. They end up at Population Police headquarters, where he finds an expected favor from the commander of the base as a result of his association with Tiddy, a favorite of the commander's. Tiddy goes to the forest and reports upon his return that he torched the entire area. Unexpectedly, he dies from poison soon afterward. Matthias grieves for Percy and Alia who he believes are now dead, though makes it appear as though he is grieving for Tiddy instead. The commander provides Matthias with special allowances, believing that Matthias is devastated by Tiddy's death, and Matthias pretends to enjoy the commander's company to avoid getting into trouble.

Matthias soon encounters Nina, working undercover at the headquarters, and she reluctantly reveals what she, Lee (Luke Garner), and several other allies are doing in hopes of overthrowing the Population Police. The commander also takes the boy to a warehouse full of food, where Matthias realizes that he must stop grieving over Percy and Alia and help Nina and her friends. Thanks to Matthias, they are soon able to overhear many of the commander and the Population Police's plans, including one involving Jason Barstow, a boy who betrayed Nina to the Population Police.

Matthias eventually escapes from headquarters to aid Nina and the others but is caught by Mike, a Population Police agent and Tiddy's best friend. However, Mike soon reveals that he is actually a double-agent, having previously saved Matthias and Nina when they were caught during a secret meeting to exchange information. They make their way to the warehouse and empty it of all its food by "lending" it to the local population. The warehouse, which also contains fake ID cards as well as the local population's real ID cards, is destroyed to prevent the Population Police from exacting a plan that would expose illegal thirds and other people targeted by the Population Police as enemies.

The pair remain in hiding for several days before returning to Mr. Hendricks' house, where Matthias hopes to apologize to Mr. Talbot for abandoning Mrs. Talbot in the forest where Percy and Alia perished. However, when they arrive, Matthias is relieved and overjoyed to discover his friends and Mrs. Talbot are safe and alive. Mike reveals himself to be Nedley, an ally from ''Among the Brave''. Matthias decides to remain at the Mr. Hendricks' cabin with his friends until he decides what he will do next with his life, though he is content to remain with Percy, Alia, and everyone else.

Bobby "Gator" McKlusky spends time in an Arkansas prison for running moonshine, when he learns that his younger brother Donny was killed and that Sheriff J. C. Connors was the one behind it. Gator knows the sheriff is taking money from local moonshiners, so he agrees to go undercover for an unnamed federal agency (presumably the IRS or BATF) to try to expose the sheriff. His handlers force him onto Dude Watson, a local stock car racer and low-level whiskey runner. Watson has no choice but to cooperate because he himself is on federal probation or parole. To infiltrate the local moonshine industry, Gator lands a job running moonshine with Roy Boone. He starts an affair with Boone's girlfriend, Lou. When the sheriff discovers Gator is working for the federal government, Connors sends his enforcer, Big Bear, after him. Gator pursues the sheriff in a car chase, in the course of which the sheriff is killed, thereby completing his revenge.

Luke Garner is an illegal third child along with Trey, Nina, Matthias, Percy, and Alia. He has been working from within the Population Police at the stables in hopes of slowly overthrowing them and bringing about freedom. When he is chosen to accompany a sergeant on a mission to distribute new identification cards to citizens, Luke unknowingly brings about the catalyst of change when he refuses to shoot a defiant old woman and runs away, leaving his sergeant in the hands of a group of angry villagers who despise the Population Police.

After several days of surviving alone, haunted by the memory of his friend Jen Talbot, run-ins with a selfish stable boy who was with Luke and his sergeant at the time of the incident, and attempting to avoid the Population Police at all costs, Luke finds his way to another village filled with starving people. They save Luke from being executed by the Population Police when they arrive; one man in particular named Eli reveals that the village no longer cares about their own lives and will do anything to help those in need like Luke. In the past, Eli and other villagers willingly betrayed a family with a third child in order to obtain food for their own families. The villagers realize their wrongs much too late and found many of their family members taken away by the Population Police with nothing in return.

When people are heard coming to the village, Eli helps Luke escape with a quilt made by his daughter Aileen. Luke wanders into another village and discovers the Population Police has finally been overthrown. With many villagers, they travel to the government headquarters as large groups of people reveal and relate their own stories on television. Luke, on the other hand, is apprehensive and discovers Oscar Wydell, Smits Grant's former bodyguard intends to claim leadership and collaborates with Aldous Krakenaur, former Population Police leader, to blame Third Children for all the Population Police's crimes.

While the news broadcast originally intended to allow people voice their opinions, Luke sees that the leaders are already beginning to poison the unwitting populace with propaganda and it is impossible for any opinion other than one that blames Third Children for all crimes to be heard. Desperate, Luke rides one of the horses (Jenny, he called it in memory of Jen) onto the stage to avoid the security guards and voices his opinion and reveals to the world what he is saying is the absolute truth as he is a third child.

Protected by Philip Twinings, a prominent news anchor from before the era of the Population Police who had hoped that opinions could have been openly shared, Luke tells his life story (chronicling the events from the beginning of the series to the present) and the stories of his friends Trey, Nina, and Matthias, and of Smits and how Oscar was his bodyguard, and people come to realize that the government is undeniably at fault. Shortly after, the people discover that Oscar escaped with Krakenaur during Luke's speech.

Luke finally finds his friends Nina and Trey in the crowd and finds out that all his friends met up at Mr. Hendricks home. Luke thinks about all the things he's always wanted to do and realizes that it is all possible.

Adapted from the television show ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', ''Wrath of the Darkhul King'' follows Buffy Summers, a Slayer destined to fight vampires, demons, and other supernatural entities. Taking place in the show's fourth season, the game features the Darkhul King a demonic warlord who ruled the Earth for over 500 years before a witch trapped him in his own dimension as the main antagonist. Buffy starts an extra credit assignment on the museum's Amelia Earhart exhibit, but she is interrupted when a demon steals a talisman. Her allies Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, and Xander Harris do research while Buffy conducts patrols. Xander's girlfriend and former vengeance demon Anya Jenkins provides insight on the demons, informing Buffy that they typically work for a master.

Buffy confronts the leader of a vampire nest, Adam, and demons known as the Gentlemen and their minions. During her patrols, she finds demons excavating for the Scepter of Thelios and later conducting a ritual. Giles informs her that they are attempting to free the Darkhul King, and he advises her to locate the demon's prison, the Temple of Shadows. When the Darkhul King is freed, Buffy recovers the Glove of Myhnegon to defeat him. She beats the Darkhul King, who swears revenge against her. After beating him, Buffy realizes that her mission distracted her from completing her extra credit assignment.

July 5 begins as a normal winter morning near Hamilton, New Zealand. At 6:12 a.m., the sun darkens for a moment, and a red light surrounded by darkness is briefly seen.

Zac Hobson is a scientist employed by Delenco, part of a United States-led international consortium working on "Project Flashlight" – an experiment to create a wireless global energy grid to power military equipment. He awakens abruptly; when he turns on his radio, he is unable to receive any transmissions. He drives into the city, which he finds deserted. Investigating a fire, he discovers the burning wreckage of a passenger jet, but there are no bodies, only empty seats. Every living animal and human appears to have vanished between the ticks of a clock.

Zac enters his laboratory, but fails to contact any of the other labs around the world. In an underground lab, he discovers the dead body of Perrin, his superior, at the primary Flashlight Grid control panel; a monitor displays the message "Operation Flashlight Complete". The mass disappearance seems to coincide with the moment Flashlight was activated. The lab is suddenly and automatically sealed because of radiation, so he improvises a gas bomb to escape. He listens to his own voice on a tape recorder describing the project as having "phenomenal destructive potential", then notes: "Zac Hobson, July 5th. One: there has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight with devastating results. Two: it seems I am the only person left on Earth." He refers to the phenomenon as "The Effect".

After a week of trying to contact another human being, Zac moves into a mansion. His mental state begins to deteriorate. He puts on a woman's nightgown and alternates between exhilaration and despair. He assembles cardboard cutouts of famous people (including Adolf Hitler, Elizabeth II, and Pope John Paul II), plays a loud fanfare and cheers from large speakers, and addresses the cutouts from a balcony. He declares himself "President of this Quiet Earth", then goes on a destructive rampage after the power blacks out. He bursts into a church, shoots a statue of Jesus off a crucifix, and announces that he is God. After accidentally crushing an empty pram with an enormous earthmover, he puts the barrel of a shotgun into his mouth, but desists. This event serves to break his insanity.

Zac settles into a more normal routine. One morning, a young woman named Joanne appears. Zac is attracted to her, and after a few days they have sex. They find a third survivor, a Māori man named Api. The three determine why they survived: at the instant of The Effect, they were all at the moment of death: Api was being drowned during a fight, Joanne was electrocuted by a faulty hairdryer, and Zac had overdosed on pills in a suicide attempt. He had realized the experiment posed serious dangers and was guilt-ridden for not speaking out. The discovery of his body, with his lab ID and tape recorder nearby, would have the consequence of exposing Project Flashlight and ending the experiment before it was too late.

A love triangle develops, but Zac is more concerned about his scientific observations: universal physical constants are changing, causing the Sun's output to fluctuate and become highly unstable. Zac fears The Effect will occur again (and that the Sun will soon collapse in any case and obliterate the Earth) and decides to destroy the Delenco facility. Api has provided the possible answer – if the still-active Flashlight Grid is balanced, and is continually destabilizing the Sun, then knocking out the facility would make the Grid fail. The three put aside their personal conflicts and drive a truckload of explosives to the installation, only to be stopped at the perimeter when Zac detects dangerous levels of ionising radiation emanating from the plant. He says that he will go to town to retrieve a remote control device to send the truck into the facility.

While Zac is gone, Joanne and Api have sex. Afterward, Api tells Joanne that he will sacrifice himself by driving the truck; he doubts that Zac's device will be capable of controlling the vehicle. They then hear the truck. Zac drives the truck onto the gas-bomb-weakened roof of the laboratory, which caves in. Just as the Second Effect occurs, he triggers the explosives.

Once again, a bright red light is seen surrounded by a dark tunnel. Zac awakens on a beach at twilight. There are strange cloud formations, resembling waterspouts, rising out of the ocean. He walks to the water's edge, then sees an enormous ringed planet slowly rise over the horizon. As the only survivor of this new Effect, Hobson stares in confusion and despair at his unearthly surroundings.

In 1938 Los Angeles, gangsters from Eddie Valentine's gang steal a prototype rocket pack from aviation magnate Howard Hughes. During their escape from the pursuing police, the getaway driver hides the rocket pack at an airfield, and in the chase that follows, stunt pilot Cliff Secord's Gee Bee plane is wrecked, ending his air racing career. Valentine's gang has been hired by film star Neville Sinclair to steal the flying device, and he now sends his monstrous henchman Lothar to question the injured getaway driver as to rocket pack's location before Lothar kills him. Meanwhile, Cliff and his airplane mechanic, Peevy, find the hidden rocket pack and begin testing it.

Cliff's girlfriend is aspiring actress Jenny Blake, who has a small part in Sinclair's latest film; recent events are now driving a wedge in their relationship. Sinclair overhears Cliff attempting to tell Jenny about the rocket pack, so he invites her to dinner. Afterward, at a local air show, Cliff uses the rocket pack to rescue his elderly friend Malcolm, who is piloting an aging Curtiss biplane in order to save Cliff's job. This makes Cliff an immediate flying sensation, but also sets Sinclair and the FBI on his tail.

Sinclair sends Lothar to Cliff and Peevy's home to find the rocket pack. The FBI arrives soon after, but Cliff and Peevy escape while Lothar steals a schematic drawn up by Peevy. Later, at the airfield diner, Cliff and Peevy are trapped by several Valentine mobsters; they learn about Jenny's date with Sinclair, and the actor's involvement in the hunt for the rocket pack. The diner patrons overpower the gangsters, but a stray fired bullet punctures the rocket's fuel tank, which Peevy temporarily patches with Cliff's chewing gum. Cliff proceeds to fly to the South Seas Club, where he tells Jenny about his new Rocketeer alter ego. The Valentine gang arrives, and in the ensuing melée, Sinclair kidnaps Jenny.

At Sinclair's home, Jenny knocks him out and discovers he is a German spy. She is quickly recaptured and forced to tell Cliff to bring the rocket pack to the Griffith Observatory in exchange for her life. Shortly afterwards, Cliff is arrested by the FBI and taken to Howard Hughes, who explains his rocket pack is a prototype similar to one Nazi scientists have been unsuccessful in developing; he shows him a horrifying Nazi propaganda film depicting an army of Third Reich soldiers using rocket packs to invade the United States. He also mentions that the FBI are trying to locate a Nazi spy in Hollywood employing Valentine's gang, whom Cliff realizes is Sinclair. When Hughes and the FBI demand the return of the rocket pack, Cliff escapes but inadvertently leaves behind a clue to where he is headed.

Cliff flies to the rendezvous, where Sinclair demands that Cliff hand over the rocket pack. Cliff divulges to Eddie that the actor is a Nazi spy, and the infuriated Valentine gang turns their weapons on Sinclair. Sinclair summons a hidden troop of heavily armed Nazi S.A., as the German airship ''Luxembourg'' appears overhead to evacuate Sinclair and the troops. The FBI, who have secretly followed Cliff, suddenly announce their presence, and they and the mobsters join forces and battle the Nazis. Sinclair and Lothar escape, dragging Jenny aboard the airship.

Cliff flies to and boards ''Luxembourg'', but during the ensuing showdown, Jenny accidentally starts a fire with a flare gun in the airship's bridge. Sinclair holds Jenny hostage, forcing Cliff to give him the rocket pack, but not before Cliff covertly removes the chewing gum patching the leak. Sinclair dons the rocket pack and flies off, but the leaking fuel causes the rocket to catch on fire, causing Sinclair to plummet to his death. Lothar is killed as ''Luxembourg'' explodes, but Cliff and Jenny are rescued by Howard Hughes and Peevy flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogiro.

Hughes later presents Cliff with a brand-new Gee Bee air racer and a fresh pack of Beemans gum. As Hughes leaves, Jenny returns Peevy's rocket pack blueprints, which she found in Sinclair's home; Peevy decides that, with some modifications, he can build an even better one.

The story involves Arbuckle as a farm boy marrying his sweetheart, Normand. They have their honeymoon with Fatty's dog Luke, at a cottage on the seashore. At high tide that night, Al St. John (Fatty's rival) and his confederates set the cottage adrift. Fatty and Mabel awaken the next morning to find themselves surrounded by water in their bedroom, and the house afloat.

Arbuckle plays a drifter who has caught a ride hiding in a train's water tank but is thrown off the train after being discovered stealing food from the passengers. He is chased by a group of Indians who intend to kill and eat him. He runs to a town called Mad Dog Gulch where he inadvertently foils a robbery attempt by Wild Bill Hickup (St John) and his gang after which the town sheriff (Keaton) appoints him the new bar tender of the local bar "The Last Chance Saloon".

Later Hickup returns, this time drunk and causing chaos in the bar. After he begins forcing himself on a young lady "Salvation Sue" (Lake), The Bartender and the sheriff attempt to eject Hickup once again. When their attempts to knock him out by breaking bottles over his head and even shooting him in the back prove ineffective, they manage to subdue him by tickling him until he flees.

Humiliated, Hickup attempts to gain his revenge by kidnapping Sue and riding out of the town with her as his gang keep the bartender and the sheriff at bay. The bartender eventually breaks free and chases Hickup back to his shack as the Sheriff holds off Hickup's men. After once again subduing Hickup by tickling him, the bartender and Sue push his shack off a hill with him still inside.