Anna and Ben, the two children of Jackie and Luke, have to cope with the fact that their parents divorced and that there is a new woman in their father's life: Isabel, a successful photographer. She does her best to treat the kids in a way that makes them still feel at home when being with their dad, but also loves her work and does not plan to give it up. But Jackie, a full-time mother, regards Isabel's efforts as offensively insufficient. She can't understand that work can be important to her as well as the kids. The conflict between them is deepened by the sudden diagnosis of cancer, which might may be deadly for Jackie. They all have to learn a little in order to grow together. Written by Julian Reischl julianreischl@mac.com
Karen McCann's eldest daughter is raped and murdered whilst on the phone with her. When the case against Robert Doob, the perpetrator, is dismissed because of a technicality, she starts following him and sees how he checks out his next victim, a woman he delivers groceries to. She tells the police, but is only warned she must stop following Doob. When she tries to warn the woman, she is shooed out of the house. Doob, having found out that Karen is following him, threatens to do something to her youngest daughter. She then seeks help from a group of vigilantes connected to a support group, in order to shoot Doob. However, a friend from the support group turns out to be an FBI agent investigating the very vigilante activity Karen is involved in and warns her that she will go to jail for the rest of her life unless it is self-defense. In the meantime, tension grows between Karen and her husband Mack, because he finds out she has secretly been taking self-defense classes and has been ... Written by gerd86
Marshal Chris Adams turns down a friend's request to help stop the depredations of a gang of Mexican bandits. When his wife is killed by bank robbers and his friend is killed capturing the last thief, Chris feels obligated to take up his friend's cause and recruits a writer and five prisoners to destroy the desperadoes. Written by David Bassler
Carl and James are two pleasant but unambitious garbage men. Carl has a telescope with which he observes his neighbors. One evening he sees a man giving a female neighbor a hard time. As she leaves he shoots the man with a pellet gun. Hiding, he and James miss two men strangling the man and leaving with the body. When he appears in a can on their route they are afraid and hide the body, fearing that they may be implicated in the death. Trying to crack the case, they spy on the woman, join up with a slightly to majorly crazed Vietnam vet, kidnap a pizza man and help to protect the ecology. Written by John Vogel jlvogel@comcast.net
Two reporters, Tracy and Chuck, get a message from a third one who discovered something about "Futureworld" and was killed before he could tell anyone about it. They visit Futureworld to find out what he knew. Written by Wolfgang Klimt wolfii@leo.org
Brilliant researchers Lillian Reynolds and Michael Brace have developed a system of recording and playing back actual experiences of people. Once the capability of tapping into "higher brain functions" is added in, and you can literally jump into someone else's head and play back recordings of what he or she was thinking, feeling, seeing, etc., at the time of the recording, the applications for the project quickly spiral out of control. While Michael Brace uses the system to become close again to Karen Brace, his estranged wife who also works on the project, others start abusing it for intense sexual experiences and other logical but morally questionable purposes. The government tries to kick Michael and Lillian off the project once the vast military potential of the technology is discovered. It soon becomes obvious that the government is interested in more than just missile guidance systems. The lab starts producing mind torture recordings and other psychosis inducing material. When ... Written by Eric van bezooijen eric@webmethods.com
Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.
Realism and fantasy collide in Jonathan Lethem's genre-bending coming-of-age story, which follows two estranged brothers as they try to leave New York City for a new life in California only to find their plans--and lives--being forever changed by the appearance of a mysterious alien.
In 1935, 99-year-old former slave Shadrach asks to be buried on the soil where he was born to slavery, and that land is owned by the large Dabney family, consisting of Vernon, Trixie and their seven children, and to bury a black man on that land is a violation of strict Virginia law.